


Borrowed Time (or, That One Time Ianto and Jack Committed Grand Theft TARDIS)

by Amand_r, lionessvalenti



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Torchwood
Genre: Alien Sex, Alien Technology, Anal Sex, Community: tw_bigbang, Costumes, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Missionary Position, Oral Sex, Other, Sex, Time Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-26
Updated: 2011-05-26
Packaged: 2017-10-19 19:29:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/204431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amand_r/pseuds/Amand_r, https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionessvalenti/pseuds/lionessvalenti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The TARDIS shows up on the Plass. It couldn't hurt to look inside, right? Just for a second?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Borrowed Time (or, That One Time Ianto and Jack Committed Grand Theft TARDIS)

**Author's Note:**

> Beta read by basingstoke and 51stcenturyfox.

Ianto didn't normally take the invisible lift. A creature of habit, he went in through the tourist office. And well, there was a perception filter, so it wasn't as if he was looking at it when he passed it.

So he was surprised when, coming down into the Hub, he found Jack glued to the monitors of Tosh's old workstation. He handed Jack the take-away coffee and looked over the man's shoulder. "Are there strippers on the Plass again and I missed them?"

Jack made a face at the coffee. Ianto was sorry, but they'd broken the machine the night before (he would maintain that it was Jack's fault until the end of his days), and he hadn't the time to fix it. Gwen was away on holiday for the weekend, and they were on their own. Ianto glanced over at the flashing lights on the main phone and winced; there were probably fifty messages on there.

He regarded Jack again skeptically. He'd presumably been here all night and into the morning, and yet, the messages went unanswered or listened to. Ianto finally spared a look at the monitors.

There, on the perception filter, was the Doctor's blue box. The TARDIS.

Ianto blinked a few times and sipped his own coffee. Well, so much for getting anything done today.

He waited for Jack to say something, but it was clear Jack was content to stare at the monitor, waiting for something to happen. Surely, he wasn't going to stand there all day, but he had probably been standing there all night, waiting for the Doctor to exit or enter the box. Finally, Ianto asked, "How long has it been there?"

"I noticed her about three this morning," Jack replied, not looking away. He took a sip of the coffee, pulled another face, then set it down.

"You've been standing here since three this morning?"

"Just about three." His fingers tapped the desktop. Ianto recognised the rhythm as the opening to Queen's 'We Will Rock You'.

Ianto raised his eyebrows. "I hope you were coming from the loo, not going to."

Jack's eyes slid over to Ianto for a moment, then back to the monitor again. "The Doctor refuels here. I guess that's what he's doing now. I scanned the area for someone with two hearts, but nothing. He's either still inside or out of range."

"How far is out of range?"

Jack frowned. "It doesn't matter."

 _O-kay_ , Ianto mouthed to himself. "I'll start on those messages, then."

"You know," Jack said over his shoulder as Ianto walked away, "if she stays there all day, we should look into it. She is alien and sitting in our back yard. We should do something about it."

Ianto was simultaneously nervous and intrigued about what that 'something' might be. Jack was using the same not-quite-serious tone of voice he often used when he would suggest checking Ianto's pants for weevils with his mouth, or the time Jack requested Ianto give him a thorough strip search, complete with green rubber gloves, because he misplaced the key to sub-basement four. The key had been found later on Jack's key ring.

In the meantime, the morning crawled by, and Ianto busied himself doing what he normally did: being productive, filing, running interference, lightly cleaning, fielding phone calls. He figured that if he could wrangle a helmet from there and punt something, he might have a good description of a rugby player for his CV. He tinkered with the coffee machine and pronounced it only slightly dead, then ordered the part from a company he'd used before. He recycled a stack of paper files from Jack's desk that once were of the utmost importance, but now were so past the date in which they were requested that they were obsolete; UNIT had no need for backdating. Besides, Ianto was running an experiment to see how long it would be before they noticed that Torchwood Three hadn't sent them anything tangible for seven months.

Jack gravitated around the monitors as if he were a small moon. He set whichever one he was near to the Plass so that any time he could glance up and see the TARDIS on the paving stone. It hadn't done anything. Ianto tried to explain that they could set the sensors to detect any movement within a small radius of the box, but Jack seemed to need to _see_ the box itself.

Ianto was actually grateful when the Rift Monitor went off, and he was able to pinpoint the location to Penarth. That would keep them busy for a while. He loaded up the SUV with a few more tranquiliser guns (ever handy, ever versatile), and waited for Jack inside the car, engine running, whilst Jack sauntered across the parking garage, his eyes glued to the BlackBerry in his hand. His hand fished for the handle of the door but misjudged the distance, and he ran face first into the door.

Ianto smiled into the rearview mirror. It was going to be a lovely afternoon.

***

The trip to Penarth had been a wash out. The vague alien threat that the monitor had picked up turned out to be the alien equivalent of frozen block of waste falling from an airplane toilet unit. Ianto and Jack had incinerated it on the spot and congratulated themselves on a job well done without ever having to fall or run or in general sully themselves by kneeling in the mud or hauling something snotty or sticky. Ianto counted this one a win.

Or he would have, if Jack would stop looking at the BlackBerry long enough to answer a question with more than three words. He had thought about doing that gag he'd seen on the telly, where the person suggests all manner of ludicrous things that the distracted person agrees to because they're not paying attention, but he had a feeling that he'd be offering to do things that Jack would expect him to make good on later, and he'd already done that before. So he followed Jack into the Hub through the parking garage entrance, eyeing the back of the man's head as it bent to glance at the BlackBerry, until he could two-step up to his office and key up his CCTV footage to his monitor.

He could at least get Jack to do some paperwork, signing things, since that didn't require the computer, which was obviously otherwise occupied. He dropped off a stack of files that merely required signatures and set an apple on them; he figured that if, in an hour, he returned and the apple were still there, then he would have to take drastic measures.

He didn't have to. In thirty minutes Jack appeared at his workstation, files in one hand, apple core almost completely bare in the other. He tossed the core in the bin and dropped the files on the desk. "What's next?" Jack asked, his eyes flitting to the screen, which Ianto had set to the Plass simply because, he had to admit, his curiosity was piqued as well. It was better than a screensaver of the oval T bouncing around.

"What's next, is we decide what to do about that," he replied, nodding his head at the box on the screen. "Are you worried about it?"

Jack shrugged. "Nope."

"Ah," Ianto offered.

"It's not a big deal," Jack said.

"Right."

"I mean, he has to refuel sometime, right?"

"Sure."

"And I passed on it the last time he offered, so it's not as if I want to go back."

"Uh huh."

"You're humouring me."

"Yup."

Jack scrubbed his face with his hand and stared at Ianto for a second. "I keep forgetting that you've never actually _met_ him. Been inside--it's bigger on the inside, have I ever told you that it's bigger on the inside?"

Ianto bit back several sexually charged but hideous comebacks to that, and instead nodded gravely. "I think you may have mentioned it several times."

Jack grunted and rubbed his temples, staring at the screen.

Time ticked by slowly. Ianto considered supper, another cuppa, the three stacks of filing in his inbox, the new lube Jack had that smelled like 'winter', his own firearm, which was in serious need of cleaning, the three other calls he had to make, one to the butcher for another shipment of Myfanwy meat. All things that had promise. Instead, he decided to tackle another issue entirely.

"We could go up there," he suggested.

Jack smiled. "I don't know if that's a good idea."

Okay then. "What if," Ianto mused, arms crossed, "what if we just brought the lift down?" They both looked at the lift ramp in its raised position.

Jack snorted. "She'd never forgive me." He slapped his hands on his thighs. "That's it. I'm going up there."

Ianto followed him to the cogwheel. " _Who_ would never forgive you?" He stood next to Jack as the wheel rolled back and Jack bounced down the hallway to the steps up into the Tourist Office.

"The TARDIS," Jack called over his shoulder. "What did they teach you in Doctor 101?"

"I worked in an office. Everything I learnt about the Doctor I learnt over a water cooler," Ianto replied. "Until I read all your files, that is."

Jack stopped on the stairs and looked down at Ianto. "You read all my files?"

"It was terribly interesting. Not unlike reading a novel."

Jack considered him for a moment, then shrugged. "Fair enough." He squatted, then sat down on the step and bent forward, his face almost level with Ianto. "What most people, water cooler people, don't know about the TARDIS is that she's sentient. She's a living ship, her own being, and she's..." Jack grinned and shrugged. "She's beautiful."

All of the pieces suddenly fit together. Ianto stared at him. "You fucked the ship. All this time I thought you'd been doing the Doctor, and it turns out you were shagging the spaceship."

Jack raised his hands and leant back against the edge of the stair. "You make it sound like I stuck my dick in her tailpipe," he groaned. "The TARDIS is a _lady_." He stood when Ianto started up the steps and turned, shoving his hands in his pockets. "I'm not going to explain it to you. You'll see."

Ianto raised an eyebrow even though Jack couldn't see it; he'd be able to hear it in Ianto's next statement. "I'm not sticking my dick in the Doctor's ship's tailpipe." Jack barked a laugh and he continued. "What _does_ the Doctor think of this, anyway?"

Jack turned at the head of the stairs and winked. "Oh, it doesn't matter. She makes her own choices." He threw the back of his hand up to his forehead. "Ours is a forbidden love." But there was something sad in the way he said it, the way that he used the hand to hide his eyes as well as his forehead.

Even so, Ianto snorted. "All right, then. Let's go meet the mystery woman. Is woman the right term? Mystery...box? That sounds like we're on a game show."

"Well, if it comes down to the new car or the mystery box, I'll take the box every time," Jack replied.

"Somehow, that doesn't surprise me."

Ianto followed Jack outside, and as they walked along the pavement toward the water tower, now that he was paying attention to it, Ianto could easily see the TARDIS sitting there. "Looks bigger than in the photographs. Not that I expected it to be an inch and a half high."

"Bigger on the inside, too," Jack replied, almost automatically. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his keyring. He flipped through the probably fifty keys, biting his lip and humming impatiently. He grinned suddenly. "Here it is!" Jack inserted his key in the door and turned it minutely before looking back at Ianto. "He hasn't changed the locks. Good sign!" The lock gave the rest of the way and Jack pushed the handle, swinging the door in. "Okay, now for the good part." He poked his head in and looked around before withdrawing it. "No one in there."

Ianto stuffed his hands into his pockets and wondered what he must look like, standing on the Plass by a paving stone that no one could quite bring themselves to actually _look_ at, glaring at the fountain. He wasn't sold on the idea of wandering into the Doctor's blue box, even if it was empty. Especially if it was empty, actually. Gate crashing was just bad manners.

"Are you sure this is a good—" He was cut short when Jack opened the door fully and stepped inside, grabbing Ianto's arm and pulling him in with him. He stumbled on the threshold and Jack caught him somewhat before he could land, face first, on the floor.

"Gotcha," Jack said with a grin, helping Ianto to his feet. "Come say hello."

"I thought you said no one was here," Ianto replied, looking around. It didn't look like what he expected, but as he stood there, he realised he didn't know what he had expected, not really. The water cooler chatter hadn't given any specific details to the vague rumors.

Jack walked backwards up the ramp toward the middle of the room. "The Doctor isn't here—"

"Speaking of that, is it all right that _we're_ here?"

"I have a key. And he did land on our doorstep. He should have known better if he didn't want visitors." Jack was becoming more distracted with each word as his fingers made contact with the TARDIS console. He leant forward, letting his hands wander freely as he closed his eyes.

Ianto stared, walking closer, but cautiously. "Jack?"

Jack opened his eyes and smiled contentedly. "Come 'ere."

Ianto took a couple more steps and stood next to Jack. He looked down at the array of buttons, switches, levers, monitors, wheels, and gauges in front of him. He supposed it took a lot of tech to travel through time and space. He'd never really thought about the effort it would take.

"Like this," Jack said, taking Ianto's hand and laying it on the console, palm down. Jack looked up at the green, glowing pole in the center of the room and said, "This is Ianto. Ianto, the TARDIS."

"Pleased to meet you," Ianto replied, feeling somewhat awkward until a warm, electric buzz ran up his arm. He gasped and almost fell over again, this time letting his shoulder bump into Jack to keep his balance.

Jack laughed. "She likes you."

Ianto nodded at the console and Jack and wondered if she could 'see' him. Did she have a camera eye tucked in a corner, or was she nothing but eyes? Could he conceivably hide in a corner and be out of sight, like when he and Jack played naked hide and seek? "What do we do now? Wait for the Doctor?" Ianto's hands tried to leave the console, but he found that he just liked the way she felt, the smoothness of her. She was cold in places and warm in others. Ianto wondered if this was some strange Jackobite trait he'd picked up, or if he really rather liked the ship a little too much of his own volition.

Jack seemed about to say something, but then the open door swung shut with a clanging noise that shouldn't be made by a wooden door, and the pillar in the center of the console began to glow brighter and the object in the clear tube of it started to pump up and down. Ianto heard a strangely familiar alarm noise, and it nagged at him where he had heard it before.

Jack's head whipped to the door, and he dashed for it, tugging at the handles, and then banging on the frame with his fists at full force. Ianto stood rigid at the console as Jack ran back to it and turned a few cranks, pushed a few buttons, and did something obscene with what looked like a music box thread-wheel.

"No no no no no," Jack mumbled, working a gearshift. "Oh no, baby, he'll kill me, no, honey, what are you doing?"

Ianto glanced about and then it hit him: _They were taking off._ Leaving, flying, dematerialising, whatever it was called, the TARDIS was leaving the Plass. Possibly Wales. Possibly Earth. Possibly the 21st century.

And he was _in_ it.

He ran his hands along the rim of the console while Jack opened the grating in the floor and played with some wires, all the while babbling in almost some sort of baby-talk, and a more rapid-fire version of his low seduction voice. "Oh honey, please don't do this to me." He jumped into the compartment underneath the grating and clanged a few things around. Ianto poked his head over the hole--he wasn't about to get down on his knees, not yet--and blinked at Jack, who was surveying a panel of glowing wires, mumbling something reassuring like, "It wasn't this way the last time I was here."

Ianto tried his hand at speaking. "Let me get this straight. The Doctor isn't on board."

"Seems not."

"And we've taken off, and we can't fly this thing."

Jack looked up at Ianto and smiled. "I can fly her. I just choose to let her..." He trailed off at Ianto's glare and his grin got wider. "No, no I can't?"

Ianto felt his balance seem to wobble. It was silly, he knew, because it felt like being on solid ground, really, or maybe a huge cruise ship. But just knowing that he wasn't on the _ground_ ground, no wait, not even in orbit most likely, not to mention this time, was enough to make him think of bending tesseracts and feel distinctly queasy.

"Look," Jack said, standing up, and, looking a bit shaky himself, trying his hand at a keyboard. "Sometimes this sort of thing just happens."

"This just _happens_."

"Well, no. Well, sometimes. Kinda. Maybe? It just did, so I guess so." Jack shrugged and reached up one hand to run his fingers down the wall. "Neat, huh?"

Ianto felt his frown grow exponentially. "Right."

Without warning, everything stopped. After the sounds of the engines working and time travel, and the buzzing panic in Ianto's ears, the TARDIS seemed silent, though there was still a humming under the console. The TARDIS was definitely still awake.

"We've landed," Ianto said, trying to regain his balance on jelly-legs. He turned to Jack and asked, "Where are we?"

Jack shrugged. "No idea, but you can let go now."

Ianto looked down and noticed he was still holding onto the console's edge. He pulled his hands away and flexed his fingers. "What next?"

"We go out and see where we've landed," Jack replied, grinning. "I love this part."

Ianto noticed that Jack seemed to love all the parts, but that was typical Jack, wasn't it? They could be on another planet, walk out that door and not be able to breathe, and Jack would walk into it smiling. At least Ianto would have something nice to look at before he suffocated somewhere out in the middle of the universe.

Instead of telling Jack everything on his mind, Ianto asked, "Is it safe?"

"Is anything safe?" Jack asked. Ianto didn't have time to point out how that didn't answer his question as Jack darted for the door. He flashed Ianto another grin, opened the flimsy-looking wooden door and poked his head outside for just a moment. When he glanced back into the TARDIS, he looked absolutely enthralled.

"You have to see this, Ianto." Jack beckoned him. "It's beautiful."

Ianto steadied himself again, straightened his tie, and followed Jack. He stepped out the door and onto new ground. In this case, white sand that sparkled in the light of two suns, leading out into a translucent blue ocean.

"Whoa."

Jack laughed and placed a hand on the side of the TARDIS. "I should have known my girl would bring us someplace good."

Ianto watched the way Jack stroked the exterior of the ship, smiling fondly at it--her? Oh fuck, he was not going to be jealous of the spaceship, but there was something about the look in Jack's eyes. Ianto cleared his throat. "So, uh, we're on another planet, right? Two suns and all."

"I'd say so." Jack turned away from the TARDIS and bumped against Ianto. "What do you think?" He wiggled his eyebrows.

"I'm impressed. Are we in the future?"

Jack hit a couple buttons on the strap. "No, actually. It's about tea time in Cardiff." He looked up. "Huh."

"Are we...supposed to be doing something? I don't know what the protocol for this sort of thing is."

"That's the beauty of it. There isn't a protocol." Jack grinned. "Don't be scared."

***

Ianto laid back against the tree trunk and wished he had a hat. A hat with a big brim to cover his face, like those siesta hats--sombreros. He wanted a sombrero. It felt like a sombrero planet, and no one would ever see him wearing it. And the double sun would be out of his eyes.

Jack stomped back from his perimeter walk. "Huh," he said, kicking a coconut-looking thing and sitting next to Ianto on the ground.

Ianto covered his eyes with his hand and looked at Jack. "What?"

Jack checked his wrist strap. "Well, usually, something bad has happened by now." He gestured with his fingers. "This is how it works--we go somewhere for a bit of fun, exploration, and then shit happens and you end up running for your life."

Ianto nodded solemnly, trying to look disappointed. "And yet." He nodded back at the TARDIS, sitting in the shade of another, larger tree. "Do you think she just...you know, did it on purpose? Nothing wrong, just," he waved a hand. "Beach?"

Jack stared at her for a long time, eyes narrowing. Ianto wasn't sure if he was communing with the TARDIS or just trying to death-glare her into submission. It was hard to tell. Also, Ianto suspected that they would both be equally ineffective. Instead, he stared out at the blue waves that smacked the pale sand of the beach, each cascade sounding almost musical, bit like the shores of Cardiff, or any beach he'd been to, actually.

"If it makes you feel better," he said lightly, much more relaxed than he had been the whole trip here. "I'm in critical danger of getting a sun burn."

At that exact moment, there was a rustle from overhead, and a coconut-fruit-thing fell from the tree, landing with a sharp thud in the sand next to them. They both looked at it.

"Well," Ianto proffered, "that could have been dangerous."

Jack's mouth quirked and he undid the first few buttons on his shirt. "True. One foot to the left and you would have been a goner."

Ianto raised his hands as if to say, 'what can you do?' and squinted in the sun. "I suppose we should run for our lives." He stopped. "What happens after you get back to the TARDIS?"

Jack smiled and stood.

Ianto cocked his head. "Really." It wasn't a question.

Jack held out a hand. "Come with me if you want to live."

Chuckling, Ianto took Jack's hand and allowed himself to be hoisted off the ground. They walked back to the TARDIS, still hand-in-hand. He pumped Jack's hand experimentally, as if to test that it was a real hand and not a dummy hand, but Jack pumped back. Strangely, it was not awkward.

"We could leave the door open," Ianto said. "It's a nice breeze off the ocean here. Unless there's an ocean in the TARDIS."

"There's a rainforest room," Jack said with a shrug, "but it has monkeys."

Ianto thought he might like to know the problem with the monkeys, but from the matter of fact way Jack spoke, it was probably best left unsaid.

***

They had just helped themselves to the Doctor's kitchen and made a cobbled meal of toast and jam, potted meat, and some very sad looking pears, when Jack had said that they should think about what they were doing there. Ianto had looked about the kitchen and thought about making a smart remark along the lines of, 'we're having supper,' but he knew what Jack was saying. They had stolen the TARDIS, and that might very well have put them, in Jack's words, 'in a heap of trouble.' On the other hand, they hadn't _done_ anything, really, just gone in and said hullo, and then suddenly _whoosh_ tropical paradise.

"I think she's playing with us," Jack said cheerfully. "But then again, that's an awful lot of playing."

Ianto agreed. Billions of miles away were an awful lot of 'playing'. His idea of playing largely consisted of flirting and rugby. He picked at the pear wedges Jack had cut and dumped on his plate. "So, you don't think there's any actual danger?"

Jack leant back in his chair, his fingers toying with his braces just below his shoulder. It was what Ianto secretly called 'Jack's thinky pose'. He shoved away from the table and picked up his plate, setting it in the sink before turning to lean against the counter and watch Ianto shove the rest of his pears in his mouth. "I think," he mused. "I think we're on holiday."

Ianto stopped chewing and thought about saying something. It said something that the Doctor hadn't been on the ship. He was probably standing on the Plass right now, scratching his head, and holding a Starbucks cup. Or cursing Jack's name. Did the Doctor curse? "So this is completely new to you?"

There was a long stretch of silence in which Ianto had thought he'd lost Jack to inner thought, some memory of some sort, the way-way back machine in his brain that allowed him to dredge through memories like a net fisherman. He'd resurface with either a shrug, or an answer.

It was the latter. "Rose and I tried to get her to take us to Barcelona once, the planet, not the city." He grinned and took the plate Ianto held out to him, depositing it in the sink with his own. "They make these banana mojito thingies that, well." He smiled when Ianto stood, pushed in his chair like the guest he was trying to be, and gestured for him to precede him from the room. "They put the banana essence in the bottom of the glass, and then they let this monkey shake it--"

Ianto raised a finger and stopped, turning at the waist. "That was where the lie started," he said.

Jack grinned. "Yeah, that was it. Too much?"

Ianto turned and regarded the smoothness of the walls as they continued back to the console room, or what he hoped was the console room. He was fairly sure he knew that route, and if he was wrong, he was going to be quite upset. "I'd say so. In fact," he called over his shoulder before realising that he'd lost Jack in just three seconds. He turned and looked back the way they had come, a hallways that featured several branches. He could have gone down any of them. He also would have known that Ianto wasn't following him. "Jack?" he queried.

Maybe the TARDIS ate him. Was the TARDIS evil? Could it be evil? If they were already inside it, didn't that mean it had already eaten them?

Ianto filed away the philosophy for later, but refrained from getting too close to any of the walls. That was rather useless, since the floor was just as alive as the walls, actually, but he squelched his running brain long enough to clench his fists and take a few tentative steps in the direction of one of the hallways. "Jack?" he called again.

"Go on ahead," Jack's voice answered, nebulous. Ianto had no idea which hallway it had come from. "I'll be there in a minute. Looking for something." He sounded increasingly far away, tinny.

Ianto stood there and glanced from hallway to hallway before shrugging and retracing his steps back into the console room, still faintly surprised that he was even capable of finding it. Jack had yet to give him the grand tour, so he hadn't had to memorise many routes (kitchen, check, loo, check); he suspected that if they really were 'on holiday', as Jack seemed to think they were, he would have a few days in which to map things out in is head. Already he was clearing space in a mental filing cabinet.

He was in the middle of considering mounting a search party when he heard footsteps. "Lookie what I found," Jack said, coming into the room from another door that led into, presumably, the rest of the TARDIS, holding a large green bottle in one hand and two flutes in the other.

Ianto turned back around on the seat to face the console as Jack crossed the room. "Champagne?"

"Better. Menginga! 3020, good year." Jack flopped down on the seat next to Ianto. "I don't think the Doctor's going to miss it, and if he does, he can go get another bottle. The dust on this one tells me it's been there for a while. Aged well."

"The humour in alcohol from the future being aged well is not lost on me," Ianto replied. He took the bottle from Jack and tried to read the label, but it was in a language made up of squares in varying colours. He looked up at Jack with a raised eyebrow. "You can read this?"

"Of course. It's the written language of Ursaga. It's the only planet you get decent menginga."

Ianto didn't point out that he wouldn't know the difference between good and bad on alien wine from the future, because he was far more skeptical that Jack could read the coloured squares, since Jack had lived in Cardiff for over a hundred years and still had trouble reading anything beyond basic Welsh.

Still, Ianto opened up the bottle. It had a cork, but it was easy to pull out with his fingers. There was a satisfying _sffft!_ as the cork left the bottle. He sniffed it, and it was distinctly alcoholic and smelled sort of fruity, but not like any fruit Ianto could name. Just sweet and tangy. He looked at the label again, as though he would magically be able to read it, but the squares were still just squares. "What's in this?"

"Fermented manvangos, mostly," Jack replied, as though Ianto would then reply, "Ahhhh!" with understanding. He took the bottle from Ianto and handed him one of the flutes. "Sort of like a combination of a kiwi and a cucumber, but a fresh manvango doesn't taste anything like the drink."

"That's very specific," Ianto said.

Jack poured a glass; the red liquid was a bit thicker than regular wine, and foaming slightly, like a carbonated beverage, but the foam stayed at the top of the glass. He handed it to Ianto. "I'm not allowed to have drinks in here," Jack mock-whispered, covering his mouth with one raised finger before turning to the console and petting it. "Don't worry baby, I'll be careful."

Ianto snorted softly and sipped his drink. The bubbles were properly tingly on his tongue and the taste was well, strange, but not bad. He was going for a second sip when the kick of alcohol hit and he wheezed, reaching up to loosen his tie, but his fingers weren't working so well, suddenly. "Shit."

Jack laughed. "I should have warned you. It's got a bite. A couple glasses of this will knock you on your arse."

"It was the delayed reaction," Ianto said, still coughing. "I'm gonna want more."

Jack laughed again. "Finish that one and we'll see where you stand."

Ianto shook his head. "Jack, if there's anything of which I'm capable, it's holding my alcohol."

Three and a half glasses later, Ianto was sprawled on the floor. He giggled at nothing, though there might have been something funny about the way the light played across the ceiling. He jerked slightly when Jack seemed to fall down out of nowhere next to him. Ianto grinned. "You smell good."

"Did you have too much to drink?" Jack asked, his own face a little drunken-seeming. "I told you it was strong."

Ianto chuckled and looked at Jack seriously. "I like the ship. It's nice in here."

"Mmm, yeah," Jack agreed lazily. He reached up and began unknotting Ianto's tie. "I'm glad you're starting to see why I like it here so much." Once the tie was undone, Jack began unbuttoning Ianto's shirt, a slow but steady process with one hand.

Ianto raised an eyebrow. "Captain Harkness, you're trying to seduce me." Jack laughed, but didn't pause his drunken but deft unbuttoning. "Aren't you?"

Jack lowered his face to Ianto's collarbone and licked along the clavicle. "Do you want me to seduce you?" he asked. "Or we could just quote movies at each other for a while instead of--mppprrrprpgh!" He flailed a bit when Ianto grabbed at his face and pulled him in to mash their mouths together. It took a second to arrange everything to Ianto's satisfaction, but in short order Jack's head bobbed with the pulse of it, tasting like fruit and candy and a lot of alcohol, more alcohol than Ianto had ever seen him drink before, actually, and why did he even care about that now when Jack was slowly sliding on top of him and oh Jesus just the weight of him, pressing Ianto into the grating, was cutting and hot and so _Jack_. From his tongue to his fingers, his chest, the hard cock rubbing against Ianto's hip, his legs tangling with Ianto's, everything was always so very Jack, in Ianto's mind, and all of that was accented by the hum of the ship, the fucking _spaceship_ , for Christ's sake, a spaceship that was alive and had, for no reason, taken them to paradise.

Now _that_ was worthy of a film plot.

Coming up for air, Jack pulled away minutely, hands resting on either side of his shoulders, his face pink under that tanned skin, his eyes glassy, pupils blown. Ianto reached up and yanked at the collar of his shirt. "You know, maybe you're right," Ianto said, "I know lots of movie quotes from _quality_ films."

Jack smirked and dipped his face forward to capture Ianto's lips momentarily. "Oh, yeah?"

"Of course," Ianto said, holding onto his serious face while he ran his hands along Jack's sides, around to the fishtail of his trousers in the back, an archaic little thing that no one but Ianto noticed, that no one but Ianto would find sexy. "Like Casablanca, Queen Christina," he groaned when Jack shifted on top of him. "Behind The Green Door, Deep Throat," he capitulated, and the pressure increased as Jack rolled his hips in a little circle. Ianto twisted the fallen braces around his wrists and smirked into Jack's ear when the man leant into nuzzle his hair. "The Muppets Take Manhattan."

Jack snorted then, and his head fell forward even more to hit the grating under them. "You are twisted and fantastic," Jack murmured.

"Those are some of my many endearing qualities," Ianto replied, freeing his hands from Jack's braces. "It's also the word 'muppet'," he whispered into Jack's ear. "Obscene. Makes me think of a fuckdoll."

Jack lifted himself. "Lazy-limb sex," he groaned. "Mmm. Maybe later." He eyed Ianto mischievously. "Have you ever had sex using paralytics?"

Ianto raised an eyebrow. "Is this a John Hart thing?" Jack shrugged. "No, no I haven't. Muppet-sex?"

Jack reached down and cupped Ianto's cock through his pants. "So much you don't know, Ianto. So much you don't know."

Ianto thrust up into Jack's hand, and the force of it ground his head into the grating. He might feel it tomorrow, but right now he felt loose and gangly, like his arms and legs were three times longer than they were, and as Jack finished unbuttoning his shirt and pulling it open in earnest study, he jump-started his fingers, reaching for Jack's too-many layered body, setting about the unwrapping process with the determination of the intoxicated. Jack, all the while, was making it increasingly more difficult as he sucked a spot on Ianto's neck, just behind his ear.

"Too many clothes," Ianto said, or at least he thought he said it. It might have been a moan, but he meant the words. Either way, Jack seemed to understand him and wriggled out of his trousers, belt still buckled and all. "That's talent," he mumbled.

Jack pressed his cock against Ianto's leg as he worked the buckle, his other hand steadying himself above Ianto so that not all of his weight was on him. "Oh, let me show you--ah!" His hand unzipped the flies and tugged Ianto's cock free. All it took then, was a little horizontal shimmy and some lifting, grinding against Jack's naked form (always welcome, really) to slide his trousers and shorts down, kick them off somewhere, somewhere he could hopefully find them later.

It was another bout of tricksy twisting to lose the waistcoats and slide arms from sleeves even without the tie (long long gone to the depths, probably), toeing off socks and laughing, and all through it, Ianto felt a distant sense of something, something like anticipation or itchiness. A hand that ran along his thigh registered a second before it possibly could have, a tongue down his chest wasn't nearly as wet as it seemed, the breath on his cock wasn't anywhere near as hot as he thought it was, he was sure. Jack sprawled next to him, his hands doing all the work, and Ianto might have felt bad about that. Two drinks ago.

It wasn't until Jack settled himself between Ianto's legs and laved his cock and balls before moving lower that it became blatantly obvious that something was missing from the sexual equation. "We are woefully unprepared for this," he murmured, then congratulated himself on critical thinking under duress.

Jack fingered his hole and rubbed his cheek against Ianto's raised knee like some jungle cat. "Hmmm?"

"Well." Ianto paused to verbally register the feeling of Jack's fingers pressing into him before he continued. "I'm not self lubricating. I mean, I guess you could use spit, and in this state I'd think it was stellar, but--"

"Hrng," Jack grunted, pulling his fingers from Ianto's arse and slapping the side of his thigh. "Wait." Ianto watched him roll towards the console with interest.

"Don't tell me the Doctor keeps lube in the glove box too," he mumbled.

"Not precisely. Well, sort of." Jack opened up one of the panels on the bottom of the console and started digging through the wires. His face was lit up with a green light, reflecting off his teeth as he smiled.

"Should you be doing that?" Ianto asked rolling onto his side and propping his head on one elbow.

"I know what I'm looking for," Jack replied, not turning away. He dug his arm in deeper and grinned. "Aha! Found you."

Ianto lifted his head slightly to get a better look at what Jack was pulling out of the console. It appeared to be a long piece of tubing connected somewhere deep inside the TARDIS, and as Ianto got a closer look, he noticed it was completely covered, inside and out, with some sort of clear gel-like substance.

"There's a lot of buildup on here," Jack murmured, fingering the tube. He petted the panels in mock horror. "Baby, when was the last time you got _laid_?" The panels throbbed in a sort of Morse code, and Jack shivered, grinning dreamily. "Oh yeah, that _was_ great, wasn't it?"

In another time, Ianto might have asked if Jack was serious, but he'd known Jack long enough to know that he was. "What is that?"

Jack grinned. He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together, spreading the gel out between them. "This is the best lubricant you will ever use."

"Lube tube," Ianto said with a firm nod and let his head fall back against the grating.

Jack's head tipped back for a moment as he smiled up at the ceiling. He dropped his head and nodded. "Yes. Exactly."

Ianto paused. "You've had that tube up your arse, haven't you?"

"You've had your tongue up my arse. I don't think you're in a place to judge."

Ianto smiled lazily. "Mmm, tasty." He reached out with his foot to stroke Jack's leg and missed by about six inches, his heel dropping hard against the floor. "Ow."

Jack laughed as he placed the tube back into the console. He turned back to Ianto and rubbed his thumb against the inside of Ianto's thigh. It was slick and warm. It almost felt like natural lubrication, which was sort of odd, coming off a machine. "See how good that feels?" Jack asked.

"It's nice," Ianto agreed. "Feels nice."

"Oh, then you're going to love this." Jack's smile spread wider and he turned away, on his hands and knees, one knee placed between Ianto's legs. Ianto liked the sight of Jack's balls hanging so close to his leg, so he lifted his legs and brushed it against them. Jack chuckled and shoved his arse in Ianto's face, giving it a wiggle.

"Show off," Ianto said. "Show me something I haven't seen." He reached up and placed a hand on each one of those perfect cheeks, pressing them together, then spreading them, listening to Jack hum appreciatively. Ianto leant forward and rubbed his face against Jack's bottom.

"Getting cheeky?" Jack asked, looking over his shoulder.

"There's a bit of cheek-on-cheek action," Ianto replied, flopping back again. "Now what were you going to do that I was going to love?"

Jack crawled forward and reached back under the console and triumphantly pulled out the gel-covered tube again.

Ianto's eyes widened. "Where do you think you're sticking that?"

"I thought you might like to give it a try. New experiences and all of that." Jack kissed Ianto's kneecap, then rested his chin there. He gave Ianto his best puppy-dog face, which wasn't very good--begging and pleading didn't really work for Jack--but still remarkably effective. Either that, or Ianto was a sucker. It was, he guessed, the latter.

"What the hell," Ianto mumbled, and let his legs fall slack. "It's--she's not going to suck out my bowels or something?"

Jack furrowed his brow. "Why would you think that?"

"I dunno. Tube connected to the inside of the ship. It was a thought."

"Not even close. She's all lubed up, so all you have to do is relax."

"I know how to do that," Ianto mumbled. He took a deep breath and sort of wished for another drink, but he glanced up at Jack and nodded.

Jack grinned. He folded the tube over once and kept it pressed against his index finger, before slowly inserting them both. Ianto sucked in a breath, and Jack peered over Ianto's knee at him. "You okay?"

Ianto raised an eyebrow. "It's all normal things-in-my-arse right now."

Jack hummed an agreement and removed his finger. The tube popped open and Jack pushed it in a little bit further. "How's it feel?"

"Fine. It's firmer...than I thought it'd be. It's - oh! Oh, oh-oh-oh-oh!" Ianto reached up and grabbed Jack's hand as the tube began to flex. It expanded and contracted slowly, like it was breathing. The startling part was that it probably _was_ breathing. There was the strangest sensation that he was connected to the ship, a part of time itself. The electric spark that had gone through him when he touched the console seemed like nothing compared to the sense of absolute _life_ that was flowing through the TARDIS and right into his--

"Oh, fuck. Oh, oh, god." Ianto squeezed Jack's hand. "This is fucking amazing."

"See what a little tube in your arse can do?" Jack asked, looking far more smug than should be allowed.

Ianto didn't care. The buzz coursing through him, despite the nature and point of entry, wasn't exactly sexual, but, god, with the touch of the universe, or time, or whatever it was coursing through him, he felt like he could do _anything_. But all he wanted to be doing was Jack, which was sort of like doing time and the universe, except warmer. He yanked on Jack's hand. "Take it out, take it--take it out."

Jack's smugness disappeared. "What--does it--"

Ianto shook his head. "It doesn't hurt, but—we--we need to be fucking. Now."

"Oh! Yeah, yes." Jack placed a hand on the back of Ianto's thigh and slowly removed the tube. He leant back to carefully place the tube back into the console.

Ianto scrambled to his knees and grabbed for Jack, trying to hold onto the memory of that energy coursing through him. It occurred to him for a split second that that was the same energy that animated, no, reanimated Jack, that snapped him back into place time after time after time, and while it would never make Ianto immortal, it was the closest he was ever going to get to Jack in some ways. Jack let him scrabble against him, his teeth and fingers and tongue searching across his skin. Ianto bit the tender flesh of the neck, scratched behind his ears, pulled at his waist.

"It's okay," Jack said, grabbing for Ianto's scrambling hands and stilling them. "Hey, yeah, it's intense. Just let it go for a sec--"

"Oh for--" Ianto grunted, turning Jack forcefully so that his hands slammed into the raised metal trapdoor. He collapsed on his hands and knees then, fingers sticking into the grating, his arse brushing Ianto's cock, and Jesus, he wasn't going to be able to stop--"No lube," he said aloud to himself, then reached around and scraped some of the lubricant from around his own arse, gathering it on his fingertips before coming around and sticking two fingers into Jack's hole. The other man groaned and leant back, pushing Ianto's fingers deeper into him.

"You're a pro," Jack gasped when Ianto pushed and pulled and tugged on him, rotating his fingers hurriedly. It was too much, really, to have to wait while he lubed up Jack's arse. Ianto was lining up even as he wondered where they could get condoms, and then he suddenly didn't care. Around them, the TARDIS hummed and seemed to vibrate, but that could be the menginga, or the after effects of the tube, or any number of things that had happened to him in the past six hours. Ianto thrust into Jack suddenly, gripping his hips and pumping. The action of slotting into place, of fitting tab A into slot B and just _getting there_ caused a tightening in his cock and balls, and he didn't have to work hard to make Jack moan, his arms tensing as he tried to push up from the floor. Finally, he gave up and fell forwards, arse in the air for Ianto to fuck, hands outstretched to the sides like he was hugging the TARDIS floor, face pressed into the grating.

He was going to fuck the life out of Jack, or fuck life into Jack, or connect his life to Jack's in a feedback circuit, and if the force of his cock moving in Jack's arse could be magic, he was going to be goddamned Merlin.

Every time Ianto dragged his cock out of Jack's arse it felt like electricity, every time he pushed his way back in, it felt like a riptide. He could feel the cool whisper from the TARDIS's air vents sliding along his back, the hear Jack's moans as his fingers yanked so hard on the grating under him that he pulled it up a few centimeters with the rhythm of Ianto's thrusting. Ianto ran his fingers down the small of Jack's back, wet with sweat, dimpling just above the arse, vertebrae hard under his skin. This couldn't go on forever, and when Jack raised himself up on his hands and knees and rocked, shoving back and pushing with his body weight as he milked his own cock, Ianto watched the bending of Jack's elbow with every pump, thinking of those long fingers running along his cock.

"Any...day...now," he panted out, waiting, buried in Jack's arse; the man's spine arched as he came, Ianto could see it splattering on the floor, down into the grating below, dripping into the machinery of the TARDIS. He might have spared a thought for the fact that if he had ejaculated on Tosh's motherboard it might not work anymore, but that was tiny, and the TARDIS was huge, and she didn't seem to care. In fact, as Jack grunted and all but screamed one last time before snapping upright so that Ianto could brace himself against the firm chest and screw himself into him, the walls seemed to change colours; the cool air became arid, and some sort of humming throbbed through the grating under his feet.

He had no way to determine what was clearly guesswork--the TARDIS was pleased.

He came inside Jack, biting his shoulder a little and kneading Jack's hips with his fingers. One of Jack's arms flew up and almost brained him in the face, but he avoided it as his hand hooked around the back of his neck and pulled a bit; Jack twisted, turning his head and their mouths met, heated, almost fervored. The heat and the light and the humming converged around them in that one last moment. Ianto could feel the last of the lubricant from the tube inside him, tingling. He could feel the last of that zinging energy leaving him as he pounded into Jack one last time, always one last time, one for the road, he might say, before breaking the kiss, biting Jack's earlobe and pushing them both forward, trying at the last minute not to fall on the man underneath him.

Ianto groaned as he lifted his weight just enough to let Jack turn over onto his back.

"Oh, shit," was all he said as he blinked at the ceiling. It seemed appropriate.

Jack giggled, he actually _giggled_. "Yeah."

Ianto felt his eyes closing as they lay there together on the floor. It wasn't the most comfortable floor, but it would do. Or at least it would have, if Jack hadn't slapped a hand across his chest, knocking the wind out of him.

"Fall asleep here and you'll get a stiff neck." Jack leered appreciatively. "And that's not where I'd like you stiff."

Ianto rolled his eyes and sat up. Jack stood first and helped Ianto to his feet. Jack's free hand ran lightly across the console as they walked out of the room and into the maze of hallways. Ianto didn't try to remember the way around; he simply clung to Jack's arm and let himself be sleepily led.

"My room," Jack said, pushing open a door.

Ianto woke up a bit at that, curious. Although he had expected something less, the room was gorgeous, all decorated in gold and blue. It didn't look like Jack picked out the decor, but it fit him. It sort of fit them both.

Ianto let go of Jack's arm and turned in a circle, his eyes came to rest on the fixture in the center. " _This bed_ is bigger than your whole room back at the Hub, Jack."

Jack grinned. "I told you, it's _always_ bigger--"

"I _know_." If he had realised it before that he wasn't wearing any clothes as they walked to the room, he might have felt self-conscious. Now, he was just ready to climb into the huge bed, larger than any kind of bed he'd ever seen, let his head fall against the pillow, and sleep.

He was dimly aware of Jack climbing into bed next to him, running a warm, damp flannel down his stomach, then wiping down his cock and the insides of his thighs. He was more aware of feeling content and being well taken care of. He leant against Jack, or possibly a very firm pillow, he couldn't be completely sure, and finally drifted off.

When he woke up, Ianto wasn't certain what time it was or how long he had been there. There were no windows. He didn't even know if the double suns even set.

Somewhere in the night, he and Jack had separated across the bed. Ianto rolled to where Jack was and the sheets were cold on his way. With a shiver, Ianto wrapped his arms around Jack, leaning against his warm back. Jack almost always felt warm. He pressed his cheek to Jack's shoulder, letting the heat spread into his skin.

"Mrrumphmr," Jack mumbled, rolling over onto his back. He opened his eyes and looked up at Ianto. "What are you doing?"

"Cuddling." Ianto rubbed his face on Jack's shoulder. "And this is nuzzling."

"Thanks for the definitions, Webster." Jack smirked. "Is it morning?"

Ianto shrugged. "Could be. Was it night when we went to bed? I wasn't trying to wake you."

"Just trying to cuddle?"

"Well, you're warm." He proved his point by pushing closer.

Jack chuckled. "So, do you know the definition of fellatio?"

Ianto grinned sleepily. "As a matter of fact, I do. Would you like a demonstration?"

Jack kissed Ianto's neck. "I don't know, you look pretty sleepy. You might fall asleep in the middle. End up with a cock in your eye."

"If you want to put your mouth on my prick, Jack, you don't need excuses. In most circumstances, I'll comply."

"What would be the circumstances where you don't comply?" Jack asked, rolling himself atop Ianto and began kissing him, starting at his collarbone and slowly working his way down.

"Oh, during autopsies? It probably—" Ianto swallowed as Jack licked his nipple. "—probably wouldn't be appropriate during conferences."

Jack looked up. "What makes you say that?"

"Your mouth would be full, for one."

Jack pouted his lips for a moment, then shrugged. He bent his head back down and continued kissing across Ianto's stomach.

"I suppose Gwen would like it if we starting blowing each other during a meeting," Ianto said as an afterthought, mostly to himself. "She might actually pay attention for once."

Jack guffawed under the blanket and didn't say anything discernable.

Ianto leant back, the pillows folding up on either side of his head. It was nothing but relaxing. The bed smelled good around him, like Jack, Christmas morning, and something Ianto couldn't quite place, but it was familiar and comfortable, like an old pair of jeans.

"You know you're barely even hard?" Jack asked, his head still buried beneath the duvet.

"Hmmm," Ianto hummed as Jack licked at his cock, lapping at it like an animal at a water dish. "I think I might be shagged out from earlier. It's all a bit more alien than I'm used to." Ianto bent his knee and stroked his foot against Jack's leg. "Not that I mind. It's nice."

Jack laughed. "I like your cock like this. It's fun to play with. It'll be like the toy surprise at the bottom of the cereal box when you do get hard."

"That's one way of looking at it."

Jack nipped at the inside of Ianto's thigh and pulled back the blanket, revealing Ianto's naked body and Jack's ruffled hair. He sat up on his knees between Ianto's spread legs. "You really don't mind everything being a little alien?"

Ianto considered the question and shook his head slowly. "No, not at all." It might have, a little bit, but who was he to disagree? Strange as everything was, it felt right in a way.

"You want to try something new?"

A smile spread slowly across Ianto's face. "Jack, let's be honest, ever since I started with you, everything's been new."

Jack grinned and leant forward to the small chest of drawers next to the bed. "Let's see what's still here. Who knows who's been in here, going through my things." He tipped his head up to flash the grin at Ianto. "Not that I mind."

Ianto's eyes lit up and lifted his head slightly to watch Jack rustle through the drawer. He wasn't sure what kind of four-pronged dildo or some kind of strangely shaped vibrator Jack was going to pull out of there, so there was a slight sense of disappointment when Jack's hand came out clutching what looked like a red plastic egg.

"You're going to titillate me with Silly Putty?"

Jack laughed and looked at the egg. "I guess that's what it looks like." He popped it open and let the flesh-coloured substance pour slowly like molasses, much smoother and more liquid than Silly Putty, out of the egg and into the palm of his hand. He rolled it between his hands, warming it up, before placing the slightly oblong ball onto Ianto's stomach.

It felt warm on his skin, but not nearly as nice as he would feel curled up against Jack beneath the blankets, so Ianto raised an unimpressed eyebrow at Jack.

"Give it a moment," Jack said, resting his hands on Ianto's thighs. "It's reading you."

" _Reading_ me?"

He traced a line down Ianto's stomach, around the putty. "It doesn't take it too long to figure out what you like. It's a good masturbation toy, but it's also fun with a-- oh, there it goes."

Ianto sucked in a slow breath as the putty began to slide down his stomach, carefully avoiding his navel, and wrapping itself around the base of his cock, which reacted to the putty. It was different from Jack's tongue or his hand, and a different kind of foreign from the tube in the console. Less intense and sort of ticklish as it massaged his foreskin.

"Jesus Christ, Jack, you didn't say it was going to do that." Ianto said laughing, giggling even. "It's not going to get all tangled up in my hair? I don't want to spend an-- oh god that's-- any time picking sexy putty out of my pubes."

Jack's laughter boomed throughout the room. "It won't. At least it shouldn't, if it's kept."

"Kept?" Ianto's eyes went wide, but it wasn't worrying about sex putty blobs in his pubic hair. The putty had wound itself around the head of his cock, and if he wasn't completely mistaken, some of the putty was pushing itself inside the slit. Was it making itself wetter? Was the putty lubing itself? Was it lube? It didn't hurt. On the contrary, it felt fantastic. "Oh my fucking--"

"I got it on this little moon outside the Asar galaxy," Jack said, bending down to press his lips against Ianto's hip. "Nifty stuff. It knows all your secret little places, the kinks you didn't know you had. And if that's doing what I think it is, we're starting a new chapter of things to do with your cock."

Ianto laughed. It was all he could do. Laughing was the perfect response to everything. He grabbed Jack by the wrist and tugged. "Come up here."

Jack obeyed, crawling up the bed with a voracious grin, bending down every couple of inches to kiss or lick Ianto's skin. "Yes, sir?" he asked, nipping at Ianto's chin.

"I want to kiss you," Ianto said, grabbing for Jack's head and pulling him down into a kiss. It was sloppy and mostly on Jack's cheek rather than his mouth, but Ianto wasn't bothered. He just moved Jack's face to the side to make proper contact.

"I like you like this," Jack said with a smile. "You're kind of adorable."

Ianto wasn't entirely sure if Jack actually said that or he was just imagining it. Things were getting pleasantly fuzzy, like he had downed another mouthful of menginga.

He tilted his head back as the putty moved, never stopping around his cock, working in and around, and all Ianto could do was hold onto Jack's arms, a constant when he thought he might fall out of the bed or off the planet. Was he still drunk? Was it the putty making him so stupid?

Ianto pulled Jack closer, dragging him down like a human blanket. Jack laughed as Ianto rubbed against his leg. Ianto groaned, burning all over, the putty hot and tickling, sending fervent chills throughout his body as he came.

Ianto smiled. He tried to say something, whether it be a groan or a swear, but nothing came out. He just grinned dopily up at Jack.

Jack grinned back down at him as he got up to gather the putty and put back into the egg. "I think we should take that home with us."

This time, Ianto did moan. He nodded. "Yeah. Yes."

Jack set the egg on the night stand and leant forward to kiss Ianto. "Field trip."

Ianto raised an eyebrow. "To where?"

"Over there." Jack pointed to a door on the other side of the room. "Shower."

"Since when do you need a shower after sex?" Ianto woke up a little. A shower did sound pleasant, but not like Jack. When they showered together, it was always before they had sex. It was foreplay.

Jack shrugged. "I don't, but it's a nice shower. Do you need me to carry you?"

"No, thank you." Ianto looked down and eyed Jack's erection. "We'll take care of that, then?"

"We'll get to it." Jack's mouth spread into a wide grin. He pulled Ianto up into a sitting position. "How you feel?"

"Drunk. You know when you feel good and invincible?" Ianto licked his lower lip, still looking down at Jack's cock. He was waiting for Jack to ask him about that fellatio definition again. Hell, he might bring it up himself. It wouldn't be any less flimsy than any of his other excuses to get Jack's cock in his mouth.

Jack pushed back Ianto's hair (Ianto would never admit to anyone how much he liked Jack's hands in his hair) and smiled, looking almost nostalgic. "Yeah," he said. "Come on."

They walked across the room, fingers laced loosely together, Jack leading the way into the loo. He pushed open the door with his free hand.

Ianto stepped away, his eyes going wide. "You weren't kidding when you said it was a nice shower." Jack laughed.

The bathroom was done all in gold marble tiles with a huge shower in the corner with glass walls, and probably thirty different showerheads, from the ceiling and out of the walls, and several, inexplicably, out of the glass. Ianto wasn't sure how that was supposed to work.

As Ianto gaped, Jack turned on the shower (there were ten knobs and levers, but Jack seemed skilled in knowing which ones to use) and the water poured out all of the heads, including the ones sprouting from the glass walls, the water practically invisible in the steam. Jack took Ianto's hand and pulled him in.

"Fantastic," Ianto mumbled, leaning against the marble as water from above rained on his head and soaked his hair, making his head feel like it weighed a hundred pounds.

There was easily room for four people, five if you squeezed them in, but Jack invaded Ianto's space, pressing his body flush against Ianto's back and hummed against his neck. Ianto could feel Jack's erection against his leg, but it seemed so much less unimportant than it had even five minutes ago.

"Check this out," Jack said, reaching away from them to turn one of the levers and after a second the water from a few of the showerheads became mingled with soap. The smell reminded Ianto of the clove cigarettes he smoked when he was a teenager, but sweeter. Soapier.

Ianto smiled, rubbing the soapy water against his skin. It was silky, sort of like lotion.

"Allow me," Jack said, turning Ianto around and pressing his back against the glass wall. Ianto tried not to think of the way his rear end was flattened against the glass, even though no one was seeing it. He couldn't see it and Jack couldn't see it. The only option was the TARDIS, and Ianto didn't think he'd mind if she were looking.

Jack cupped Ianto's face in his hands, tilting his head slightly to the side and kissed along his jaw. Ianto's breath hitched in his throat as he pressed his palms against Jack's chest. He held his breath as Jack reached his ear, and Ianto wasn't sure why because Jack had done this many times before, but just not here. Not like this.

Jack laughed softly into his ear. "Breathe, Ianto."

Shit. He had hoped Jack wouldn't notice, though that was, of course, impossible. He let the air out of his lungs and smiled, almost embarrassed.

Jack smiled, kissing Ianto's temple, then his cheek, then back to his mouth, softly, almost teasing. Ianto tipped his head forward to get more contact with Jack's mouth. Jack laughed.

"Shut up," Ianto said, laughing too.

"Mmm," Jack purred, and ran his hands through Ianto's wet hair, nuzzling the side of his head. "You're cute."

Ianto felt his heart pounding in his chest. "You're full of shit."

Jack flashed him a grin. "Aren't we all?" He nodded down to his erection. "Are we going to take care of that?"

Ianto raised an eyebrow. "Do you know the definition of masturbation?"

"Would you like a demonstration?"

"If you would."

Grinning, Jack lowered his right hand, keeping his left cupped around the back of Ianto's head. He didn't move back and locked his eyes to Ianto's as he started stroking himself. Ianto could feel Jack's hand moving rapidly against the inside of his own thigh.

Ianto leant his head forward and kissed Jack. Jack responded, gripping his fingers tighter in Ianto's hair. Ianto swallowed down a whimper and pressed harder against Jack's mouth, getting lost in the feel of it against his own, all teeth and tongues mashing together, and loving the way he could feel Jack masturbating against him.

Jack bit down momentarily on Ianto's lip, then sucked on it as he came. He clutched Ianto's head tighter, stroking over Ianto's ear with his thumb.

"Thank you for that example," Ianto said quietly, taking Jack's hand in his and bringing it to his mouth to lick the come off his fingers before the water washed it away. He peered up with a smirk. "I think I have a handle on it now."

Jack laughed and removed his hand from the back of Ianto's head to turn off the soap, letting the water run clear. He pushed both hands through Ianto's hair, washing out the soap. Ianto felt his eyes close against their will.

Fuck, Jack's hands felt good.

"The look on your face is priceless," Jack said. Ianto could hear the shit-eating grin in his voice.

Ianto opened his eyes and glared, but he couldn't even take himself seriously, so he smiled. "You're impossible."

"I hear that a lot."

Ianto snorted. "I know you do. I bet you bring all the boys and the girls, and the...aliens to your big, sexy shower."

Jack gazed at him for a moment, then shook his head. "You would be the first. Travelling here, it's...it's different." He reached up and took Ianto's head in his hands again, like it would make him understand better. "The rules are different. You don't just bring people in. It's personal space."

"So you and..." Ianto rolled his eyes up at the ceiling, "you know, the, the Doctor never--"

Jack laughed in the way that annoyed Ianto, like he had just said something incredibly stupid. He especially hated the laugh when he already felt like he had said something incredibly stupid. It wasn't the sort of validation he needed right then.

"Ianto," Jack said, amused and maybe a little exasperated, "it's not like that. If you knew him, even a little, you'd understand."

"Yeah, well, I-- I was just...asking."

Jack chuckled and kissed Ianto softly before pulling away completely to shut off the water. He placed a hand against the marble wall and looked to Ianto. "Until now, it's just been me and her in here."

Ianto leant his head to the side, as though the different perspective might help. He swallowed and asked, "You don't mind sharing?"

"As long as you don't," Jack said, but Ianto knew it never mattered if he minded or not; there were some things he would always just have to go along with, but right now sharing seemed all right.

Ianto gave Jack his best _who, me?_ face, but he was sure it fell flat when it would have been charming on Jack's face, and pushed open the glass door next to him, walking out of shower. He noticed racks of white, fluffy towels and wasn't sure if they had been there the whole time and he hadn't noticed, or if they just appeared.

"Let me get that for you," Jack said, reaching around the nonplussed Ianto to get a towel. He unfolded it and wrapped it around Ianto's shoulders.

"Thank you," Ianto said, turning around to face Jack as he lifted the towel to ruffle it through his hair. When he was done, despite the dozens of towels behind him, he handed the one he was using to Jack, the way they did it without thinking back at Ianto's flat.

As Jack dried himself, he motioned to the shower with a corner of the towel, grinning. "Look at that."

Ianto looked and saw the print of his arse on the glass, outlined in condensation. That was almost as bad as if someone on the outside had been looking.

Jack dropped the towel on the floor (also like he did at Ianto's flat), and took Ianto by the hand and tugged on it, leading him out of the bathroom. "Let's go back to bed."

Ianto wrapped his arms around Jack, who was sprawled on top of him, damp hair tucked under his chin. There was something about crawling into that bed that made him sleepy, but as he drifted off, he thought that perhaps Jack had been trying to tell him something in the shower.

It was the way Jack asked if he minded sharing when Ianto was the one intruding. How he was the first to be in the shower with Jack. There was something, Ianto strove to remember, about not bringing other people in, and yet, here he was.

Though, the real possibility was that Jack was just talking and meant nothing of it. Still, Ianto gave Jack a gentle, thankful squeeze before letting himself fall asleep again.

***

It didn't take Ianto a minute to remember where he was when he awoke in the large bed. He knew exactly where he was (assuming they hadn't traveled in space while he was asleep, but he somehow guessed that would have woken him) and that made him smile. He rolled his head to the side and saw that Jack wasn't there. Not unusual.

Ianto climbed out of the bed and noticed a dressing gown draped over an armchair by the door. It wasn't the sort of gesture Jack would even think of making. He slipped it on and awkwardly placed his hand on the doorframe as he whispered, "Thank you."

He wandered, trying to make his way to the console room, because if Jack wasn't there, he would be there eventually, but Ianto found it difficult to navigate around the TARDIS. He became quickly disoriented, like the halls and rooms moved of their own accord, and as far as Ianto knew, they did. It took some time, but Ianto found the console room and Jack.

Jack was kneeling next to the console mumbling quietly, his cheek pressed against one of the panels. From far away, Ianto couldn't hear what Jack was saying, but the moment looked cozy and intimate.

"Good morning," Ianto said quietly, as not to startle them.

Jack stood up, smiling. He grabbed Ianto by the wrist and pulled him closer. "Morning."

"You think I could get a coffee?" Ianto asked.

Jack nodded. "You can have anything you want."

As they started back through the depths of the TARDIS, Ianto said, "I was thinking since we are on a beach and all, we could go swimming. I've never been in water quite like what's out there. Just pools and such."

"I didn't know you swam," Jack replied. "I'm having a hard time picturing it. I thought you Welsh mining stock just sank like lumps of co--" Ianto hit his shoulder forcefully and Jack slammed into the wall, but it was halfhearted.

"Find some swimming trunks around here, and I'll show you."

"Trunks? There's no one around except the three of us." Jack smirked impishly.

Ianto shook his head. "No. And don't push it before I've been caffeinated."

Jack laughed. "Yes, sir."

Ianto smiled. He liked it when Jack called him 'sir', even if it was in sarcasm.

After a sufficient amount of coffee, Jack led Ianto into what was quite possibly the universe's largest closet. It was several levels packed with clothing and a spiral staircase going up through the middle.

"Why does one man require so many clothes?" Ianto asked, gazing up, unsure if he could even see the top of the wardrobe.

"He has lots of guests and most of them just end up travelling with him without plans. Eventually, they're going to want a change of clothes, because not everyone packs a bag. Like us." Jack started for the stairs. "This might take some time. Last time I was in here for clothes, and that was longer ago than I'd like to admit, it was difficult to find...whatever you were looking for. Sizes aren't a problem though."

"Are all the clothes bigger on the inside?" Ianto asked.

Jack laughed, throwing his head back and closing his eyes. "How did you know?" He kicked a trunk and it rolled a few feet on protesting wheels. "Look around. Find whatever you want. It's all here: Togas, kimonos, latex bodysuits..." he wiggled his eyebrows. "Hengh?"

Ianto turned away. "Swimming trunks it is then," he tossed over his retreating shoulder, but something about latex bodysuits stirred the curious side of him. Oh hell, Jack could have said 'henley and khakis' and he'd be curious.

Fifteen minutes later and he was no closer to locating anything resembling swimwear. He had, of course, found everything but: Scuba gear, some metal bikinis that he held up and imagined on the women he knew (he was not immune to the magical stiffening powers of Princess Leia), fifteen different sets of chain mail. A box of dried out grass skirts. Three wardrobes full of coloured T-shirts, folded and stacked in the rainbow spectrum.

Ianto considered a selection of shoes. They appeared to be arranged in some sort of order, but the system was one he couldn't quite put together. Planet of origin? Time of year when they would be used on whatever the Doctor's home planet was? He turned to ask Jack, but Jack had disappeared from the shoe area of the wardrobe. Ianto walked up to the next level and found Jack with a black leather jacket draped over one arm, his forefinger stroking the collar.

"Not quite your style, is it?" Ianto asked.

Jack looked up and smiled, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. "Just...old stuff."

"Something you used to wear?" Ianto asked. Of the things in Jack's files, his history on the TARDIS was the least touched upon (considering Jack hadn't worked for Torchwood then, it wasn't surprising), but he could take a guess. He had guesstimated a lot, and was sometimes right.

"No. A friend." Jack shrugged. "Like you said, not quite _my_ style, though back in the old days..."

"Leather trousers?" Ianto asked, knowing he sounded a little bit too hopeful. The longer they spent on their impromptu holiday he found he cared less about how he sounded. Especially if it encouraged Jack into one of the sexy positions Jack liked to be in anyway.

This time, Jack grinned. "Oh, yeah. I bet we can find some of those around here."

"There really isn't any sort of discernible organization in here," Ianto said, stepped back toward the spiral staircase. "I'm going to assume leather trousers will probably be with the trunks I'm looking for anyway."

"That's because the Doctor doesn't have you to organise his closet." Jack paused, then added, "And he can't have you."

"Oi! You don't own me." Ianto tried to a put on a sour expression, but good god, all he'd been doing lately is smiling. It was hard not to, with the beautiful beach outside, the gorgeous spaceship inside, and fantastic company. And all without any sort of danger or threat. Who wouldn't smile at that?

Jack raised an eyebrow. "You think so? You should reread your contract."

Ianto laughed, but honestly, he wasn't sure if Jack was being serious or not. He shook his head and started down the stairs, but realised Jack wasn't behind him. He backtracked and watched Jack from a couple steps down.

Jack had the leather jacket pressed to his face and inhaled deeply. He leant back, and his face was every sad, lonely, regretful expression he'd ever made wrapped into one. After a few moments, he let his breath out slowly. He stroked the sleeve, put it on a hanger, and gently hung it back up on the rod.

"What's it smell like?" Ianto asked.

Jack smiled, apparently not bothered that Ianto had been watching. "The past. Now, come on, leather trousers. If I try them on, you have to, too."

"Unless I get distracted and fuck you before I get the chance to wear them," Ianto replied. He walked backwards down the stairs, so he could keep an eye on Jack.

"Barring that, of course." Jack rolled his eyes.

On the next level, Jack started digging through boxes underneath the rack of Victorian-era dresses, multicoloured fleece bodysuits, and one red pinstriped zoot suit, complete with black fedora, that Ianto was instantly attracted to. He wondered if maybe he could try that on next. Maybe leave with it.

"It's your lucky day," Jack said, looking mischievously over his shoulder at Ianto. He reached his hand deep into the closet and pulled out black leather trousers. He tossed them to Ianto. "On."

"I thought you were putting them on first," Ianto said, turning the smooth, almost oily leather over in his hands.

Jack grinned. "I told you, you're in luck." His hand disappeared into the closet again and he pulled out a second pair. These were dark brown and laced up in the front.

Ianto raised an eyebrow. "Robin Hood?"

"If you want to be Maid Marion, there's a dress in here somewhere," Jack replied as he began unbuttoning his shirt.

Ianto paused, distracted by the newly exposed flesh of Jack's chest, though he had the coherent thought of wondering why Jack was taking off his shirt to put on a pair of trousers. It wasn't really worth asking. Ianto shook his head and held up the trousers in his hand. "I'll be putting these on, then."

"Good boy. As lovely as you'd look, all those layers?"

Ianto untied his dressing gown and slid it off his shoulders. He tossed it over other clothes on the rack and sorted out the front of the trousers from the back. He felt a little stupid when he found the zipper. "Would that involve wearing a bustle?"

Jack made a face. "Never. With your arse, no. There isn't any sense covering it up with more than necessary. Besides, Robin Hood was before the age of bustles."

"Was it?" Ianto asked distractedly as he twisted around to try and look at his own rear end. It seemed sort of average to him, but Jack always made a big deal about it. He shrugged and started to work himself into the trousers. Oh, Jesus, this was going to take forever without the assistance of a knob of butter or an entire tube of Astroglide. He supposed most people put leather trousers on alone without the added bonus of someone watching their cock and balls bounce awkwardly as they hopped around trying to work their way into the trousers. Jack could at least pretend not to be watching, but that would probably be outside the nature of Jack.

Even more irritating was that Jack could both watch the struggle and get into his own trousers with little effort.

"Could you lend a hand?" Ianto asked, the trousers halfway up his thighs.

Smiling fondly, Jack shook his head. "I could watch this all day."

Ianto's eyes narrowed as he attempted to scowl, but the look on Jack's face was annoyingly adorable and Ianto found it difficult to even pretend to be angry. "At this rate, you will be. Possibly all week. Is there something I should be sucking in?"

Jack laughed. "Don't fight it so much. Relax and let them take you."

"Now they're taking me? These are far sexier trousers than I ever anticipated," Ianto replied, but tried his hand at Jack's advice. It wasn't exactly easy, but he managed to get the trousers up and on. He zipped up and looked over to Jack. "Consensus?"

"We should implement them as part of the new Torchwood uniform," Jack said. "You look good, I obviously look good, and you know Gwen would work them."

"I like the creaking noises," Ianto said with a chuckle. "But good God, how do you move in these?" He reached behind to feel his arse. The leather was nice, he got it now, he really did, and he regretted that he hadn't a pair at home. Though who knew where he would wear them. Lisa had threatened to get him a pair once, and he hadn't let her, said they were trash wear for estate council rentboys and chavs and he hadn't been far off in some ways, but he had been young and stupid with Lisa. He was still stupid with Jack, just not as young as before.

Jack bit his lower lip and dug his own hands into his trousers, adjusting himself, obviously. "Well, you have to stret--" Ianto could see his fist punching the leather out a little, pushing. "Hah, stretch them out a little. Yeah."

"You should come over here and demonstrate that for me," Ianto said, motioning to his own crotch. "I don't think I completely understood."

"Subtle," Jack replied, grinning. He placed one hand on Ianto's back and the other eased out of his own trousers and went down the front of Ianto's. "It's easy. Kind of like you."

Ianto felt a quippy comeback on the tip of his tongue, but all that came out was a moan. He leant against Jack, wrapping his arm around Jack's waist, grabbing his arse as he mumbled, "Gonna need even more room in there."

Jack pressed his face into the crook of Ianto's neck, humming laughter. "I could take my hand out. That'd give you more room." He lifted his head and bit down on Ianto's earlobe.

"Mmm, don't you fucking--" Ianto leant forward, grinding himself against Jack's hand. He turned his head and caught Jack's mouth, moaning into him. Jack's mouth, his hands, and the smell of him, all of it distracting as they stumbled awkwardly together onto the staircase.

"My wrist," Jack mumbled, pulling his hand out the front of Ianto's trousers. "Twisted it."

"All right?" Ianto turned and took Jack's hand in his. He turned it over, inspecting it carefully, his fingers sliding up over Jack's palm and his wrist. "No bruising or swelling."

Jack lifted an eyebrow. "Not there, anyway."

Ianto smirked. He raised Jack's wrist to his lips and kissed it. "I think you're going to be fine."

"I think so, too." Jack grabbed Ianto's shoulder and spun him around, pushing him against the pole up the center of the spiral staircase. He pressed himself against Ianto, rubbing against him. "You like playing dress-up? The leather looks good on you. You're like a cowboy." He slapped the side of Ianto's arse.

"A Welsh cowboy?" Ianto asked, turning his head to look Jack in the face. He wished he'd opened up the zipper on his trousers before Jack had shoved him against the pole.

"If you like," Jack said, kissing the back of Ianto's neck. "You know all the cowboys did each other out on the range."

"I saw that movie too. It was depressing."

Jack snickered and pulled back a little. "Our movie will be better."

Ianto twisted around to see why Jack moved away, and was pleased see Jack unlacing the front of his trousers and tugging them down enough to free his cock. Ianto's mind's eye quickly flashed to Jack pushing him around some more, and forcing him to the ground, or maybe onto the next step down, and shoving that cock all the way into his mouth, pressing it against the back of his throat and gagging him on it.

"Idea?" Jack asked, running a finger down the outside of Ianto's ear. "I saw that look."

Ianto shook his head. "Passing fantasy. Mild. Happens all the time."

"Really. All the time?" Jack quirked an eyebrow.

"Who says they're always about you?" Ianto asked, putting on his best unimpressed face. He paused and rolling his eyes, admitted, "That one was."

Jack laughed and slid his hands around Ianto's hips, wrapping around to the front to toy with the zipper with one hand, and fondle Ianto's cock through the leather with the other. He kissed Ianto's shoulder, then sort of gnawed on it. "It wouldn't be any fun if they were all about me. I'd love it if you were thinking about nailing Gwen against the water tower. Jeans and knickers around her ankles, her shirt getting all see-through from the water and no bra, just soft, wet tits--"

"Actually, I think about her more over the desk at the tourist office, but whatever floats your boat. Now, back to the sex we're actually having?"

"That wasn't part of the sex we're having?" Jack squeezed Ianto's balls appreciatively, then slowly lowered the zip on Ianto's pants. "Is this more what you're looking for? Are we not naked enough for you? The fantasies not hot enough?"

Ianto licked his lower lip. "The fantasies are fine, but definitely not naked enough."

Jack let the zip lower the rest of the way. He brought both hands up to Ianto's hips and began rolling down the leather, letting his thumbs drag against his skin. "You could be nakeder. You look just as good with clothes off as you do with clothes on."

"I offer that kind of variety," Ianto mumbled. He lifted his head and pressed his mouth against the pole, feeling the vibration of his moan against his chin as Jack's hands slid against his bare bottom. He turned his head around to get a good look at Jack. "Again, no lube. You got some stashed in the back of the magic wardrobe for a rainy day?"

"Or another gorgeous day in paradise?" Jack asked. "Not around here. Time moves differently in the TARDIS, what with all the time travel. Days in linear time are years here, and the other way around. The lube could be dried up and useless by now. Always seemed like it was put to better use on my person."

Ianto shrugged. "So no panel with a lubricant cover tube hiding somewhere?" he joked. "Or is that just up front?"

"Not that I know of. I found the one in the console on accident. Besides, I don't think we could even get to a wall from here." He scraped his nails across Ianto's stomach, brushing the hairs back the wrong way. "And we don't need lube. We're creative guys." Jack slid his cock between Ianto's thighs and rocked slowly. "See?"

Ianto steadied himself, trying not to lose balance with his trousers halfway down his thighs, constricting his coordination. He wrapped his arms around the pole again and wanted to tell Jack that this was all well and good for him, since he was the one getting his dick massaged, but the whole thing was leaving Ianto more aroused. Wherever Jack put his cock, it always seemed to feel good, against the skin, pressed between the muscles of his inner thighs, the blunt tip of his prick bumping against Ianto's balls.

"S'not bad," Ianto replied.

"Oh," Jack murmured, his voice a version of 'oh, snap!' His fingers traipsed along the length of Ianto's cock and pattered, sort of, like a flute player or some other wind instrument. Just the mental comparison made Ianto want to roll his eyes at himself. "That is the voice of a man who isn't impressed." He withdrew his hands and used them to press Ianto's legs even closer together. "And now, I'm going to tell you what I would do to Gwen if she were right here, so that you know what you're not appreciating."

Ianto rolled his eyes then, though it was difficult to pretend to be put out. Jack's hands had returned to his cock and balls, but this time his whole body pressed Ianto's into the pole of the stairwell, his thrusting more like grinding, pressing, never really pulling back, but manipulating his foreskin over his cock using Ianto's thighs as friction. Ianto's cock was to the side of the pole, but Jack seemed to enjoy pressing the length of it to the cold metal, the flat of his palm cupping him so that on one side he was too hot and on the other too cool. It reminded of him of placing his hand on Lisa's thigh, half of his hand on cold metal, and the other half on warm flesh.

"Gwen would be bored," Ianto said when he was pretty sure he wouldn't gasp in the middle of it.

"She would not-- you're taunting me." Jack stopped everything, except his breathing on the back of Ianto's neck. He slid one of his hand slowly up Ianto's stomach and across his ribcage. "If you were Gwen, you'd be begging because my dick would be right up against your clit, just out of reach. Not touching, but _right there_ , and I could keep my hands otherwise occupied, like this." He slid a finger slowly against the tip of Ianto's nipple. Ianto's back arched just slightly, and if Jack hadn't been so close he might not have noticed, but he did, and laughed in Ianto's ear. "That's what I thought."

Ianto looked over his shoulder as best he could. "You figured out my evil plan, very good. Are you going to get me off now?"

"You talk too much," Jack said, as he began grinding himself against Ianto again. His hand worked Ianto's cock against the pole, but with a completely different rhythm than his thrusting. Slower, longer strokes. "I'm gagging you next time, I think."

Ianto laughed. "Not like I haven't heard that one before."

Jack didn't say anything. He slid his hand up from where it had been resting on Ianto's chest, still gently teasing the nipple, now moving up his neck. Ianto tilted his chin up, the back of his head almost resting on Jack's shoulder as a finger slipped into his mouth. He went to close his lips around the finger, but another pressed in next to it, followed by a third and a fourth. Ianto opened his eyes, trying to get a look at Jack, but he couldn't turn his head with the way Jack's palm was cupping his chin and holding him there.

Anywhere else, with anyone else, Ianto might have panicked, but here, with Jack, he let the lack of control relax him. He moaned around the fingers in his mouth, biting on Jack's pinky and forefinger that were sandwiched between his molars, and that seemed to make Jack thrust harder. His hand left Ianto's cock and grabbed him at the hip. Better leverage or something as he plowed Ianto's thighs. Ianto tried to line his dick up with the pole to rub himself against it, but he just kept slapping it awkwardly against the metal.

"Relax, baby," Jack said, rubbing his thumb against the underside of Ianto's chin.

Ianto wondered for a moment if Jack was talking to him, because Jack never called him "baby". In fact, if he could talk, he might have protested the pet name. Even so, he relaxed his shoulders and his legs, leaning against Jack for a lot of his support, but still holding onto the pole. After letting his jaw slacken, Ianto found he could slide his tongue between Jack's middle and forefingers. He started tongue-fucking Jack's hand, humming around it the way Jack liked when Ianto would give him a blowjob.

Jack laughed. "I love it. Keep doing that." He bent his head down and bit Ianto's shoulder, groaning. He was mumbling something, but Ianto couldn't make out was it was, and he didn't really bother trying. Jack's movement went jerky and his grip on Ianto's hip and jaw tightened as he came. As the come rolled down the inside of his thighs, Ianto almost felt like he had been coming with Jack. Almost.

Jack removed his hand from Ianto's mouth, then leant forward, pushing him against the pole, draping his arms over Ianto's shoulders. "You do make a good fucktoy."

"Well, this fucktoy would like to get off now. Preferably in your mouth."

"I can do that." Jack bit Ianto's ear and slid bonelessly down against him, kissing his bottom and placing hands at Ianto's hips and turning him around. Ianto leant against the pole, holding onto Jack to keep his balance. The last thing he wanted to do was topple down the stairs, not when they had reached this point.

Jack kissed his way down Ianto's cock, starting at the head and moving slowly down one side, Jack's head tilting further with each kiss.

Ianto rolled on the balls of his feet. "Jack, hurry it up. Haven't you teased me enough? I'm not going to last and at this rate, I'll come on your face."

"I like it when you do that," Jack said, looking up at him seriously. He continued to look up as he licked the head of Ianto's cock through his foreskin while he jerked at the bottom with his fingertips.

True to his word, Ianto didn't last long. He dug his back into the pole, clinging to Jack to keep from falling as he banged his head on the metal behind him. "Fucker," he mumbled, when he meant to either say 'fuck' or 'bugger', and the words merged in his mouth. It wasn't likely that Jack would notice.

Jack wiped his chin with the back of his hand. "Most of it went in my mouth."

Laughing, Ianto let himself fall down next to Jack. He kicked out of the trousers and flung them over the railing. "So that's how the cowboys did it, huh?"

"Yee haw," Jack replied, chuckling and situating himself more comfortably on the stairs. He followed Ianto's lead and tossed his trousers onto the railing and they slid a few inches down the banister.

Ianto scooted closer to him, resting his head on Jack's shoulder. It was only when Jack ran his hand through Ianto's damp hair did Ianto realise how sweaty and hot all over he felt. He started thinking about the water outside. Now was an even better time to go swimming than it was however long ago they started going through the wardrobe.

"How do you feel about swimming now?"

"How important are swim trunks now?" Jack countered.

"Not very," Ianto admitted. "Maybe it was all a good excuse to get you in here. What do you think?" He lifted his head and peered at Jack, who looked almost sleepy in his satisfaction.

"It was an excuse and you didn't even know it."

"Nope."

"Then again, you've got a pretty good instinct about these things."

Ianto smiled. He ran his finger down the side of Jack's face, temple to chin, all shiny with sweat, and for a moment, Jack felt like _his_. It was stupid, Ianto knew, because Jack wasn't, and if Jack _did_ belong to anyone, it was probably the ship they were in at that very moment. The only thing Ianto could do was envy them both and be content with what he did have: this opportunity. So Ianto kissed Jack on the mouth and pulled away with a loud smacking sound he most definitely did not intend to do.

Jack grinned.

Ianto grinned too, then forced himself into a standing position. He stretched, feeling his back popping as he did, and glanced at the two pairs of trousers slung lazily over the railing. He fingered the black pair and asked, "I suppose it would be bad form to nick these, wouldn't it?"

Jack shrugged. "Probably. When we're back in Cardiff, we'll get some," he said as he stood. He took Ianto's hand and they started slowly down the spiral staircase. "We'll get the whole get up. Hats, boots, spurs. We could have used spurs earlier. Do you know what kind of sensations you can get out of them when rolled over the skin?"

"Something sensational?" Ianto guessed.

Jack laughed and pushed Ianto against the railing and kissed him. As they parted, something fell from the ceiling and hit the next step down. Ianto bent down and picked it up. He started laughing as he held his palm open flat, revealing the pair of silver spurs in his hand. Jack stroked the metal pole, and muttered, "That's right."

***

Typically, Ianto wouldn't walk around mostly naked anywhere that wasn't his flat, or on some rare occasions, the Hub, but the TARDIS wasn't just anywhere. There was no one else around, and at this point the TARDIS had seen everything. Jack had seen everything ages ago, so there wasn't anything left to hide from him.

It was interesting, though, to take into account what a ship could see--could she see? He still hadn't quite figured it out. She could definitely feel, and could probably, at the very least, sense that he was naked. She kept things warm, just the right temperature for wandering around in the nude.

He wandered the halls - and there were many of them - guided by the occasional blinking light from the TARDIS until he found Jack making tea in the kitchen. Jack, on the other hand, was comfortable being naked anywhere he wouldn't get arrested for it, though he had donned his trousers for his kitchen excursion, probably so that he didn't accidentally burn something he didn't want burnt.

"Isn't that my job?" Ianto asked from the doorway.

"I thought I'd give you the daaaaaaaaay...off." Jack's sentence seemed to have been distracted as he glanced up at Ianto.

Ianto fingered the blue silk tie around his neck. It was the only thing he was wearing. "You like it?"

Jack nodded. "Very much."

"Your kinks can be so predictable sometimes."

"I know what I like. You want me to fuck you in the kitchen," Jack replied.

Ianto smirked. "I can be predictable, too."

Jack rifled through the drawers absently. "I'm sure we could find something unpredictable to spice it up with, if you like." His fingers fished in the drawer and came up with what looked to be a cross between a manual eggbeater and a torture device. He evaluated it for a few seconds before shaking his head and tossing it back in. Ianto rounded Jack's back and came from behind him, flipping the tail of the tie over the other man's shoulder and down his chest.

"Is there lubricant in there? Some amazing chemical compound that will turn your skin into insensate pleasure?"

Jack pushed three stainless steel eggcups and what looked to be a fish tank motor out of the way before shaking his head. "No." He shivered once when Ianto brought his arms around his shoulders, and the tie slid along one nipple.

"That's a shame," Ianto whispered in his ear, his chin resting on Jack's left shoulder. He snagged the end of the tie in his right hand and pulled it over Jack's right shoulder, garroting him gently. Jack sucked in a breath and rock backwards, brushing Ianto's cock with his barely clothed arse, and oh, yeah, Ianto liked the way the curve of his dick slotted right in between the two cheeks. He pushed with his hips and pulled with his right fist, even as the tugging of the tie still about his neck yanked on him. "I was looking forward to another round. The TARDIS has a lot of rooms." He paused. "Have we ever done it in a kitchen?" He paused. "The Butler's Pantry in the Hub doesn't count," he amended when Jack had been about top open his mouth. Instead, Ianto twisted one finger around and hooked Jack's lips before drawing it out and running it down the other side of Jack's neck.

"No." Jack glanced over his shoulder, but his eyes were shutters, they closed so quickly, his hands gripping the edge of the counter, his voice soft. He almost pressed his Adam's apple against the blue silk, but instead he groaned low in his throat and leant away from Ianto so that the tie pulled tighter across his throat, taking Ianto with him. Obviously, Ianto thought as he choked a little, he hadn't thought that through beyond the first three seconds of, 'This will be sexy'.

"Well then," Ianto mumbled. Sometimes he thought that he bit off more than he could chew with Jack. Like, what was he supposed to do now? He reached forward and undid the buttons of Jack's trousers, thankful that they were there, for once, because they gave him something to do as his brain whirred and clicked.

They'd had sex in the TARDIS, with the TARDIS, sort of, and in the shower and other rooms. They'd fucked hard and almost angrily out in the sand, in the water, so much sex, really, that Ianto was starting to wonder if his brain hadn't had a switch flipped. Or why his prick hadn't fallen off.

He wondered if this was what Jack's mind looked like all the time. It would explain so much, actually.

Jack rubbed his throat against the tie, back and forth, then leant into Ianto so that the skin of his back pressed warm against Ianto's chest. "You know, you don't have to be creative all the time," Jack murmured, turning then, so that he faced Ianto and the tie cut across the back of his neck. His trousers barely hung on at his hips and Ianto pressed his own hard cock into the woolen material. One of Jack's newly freed hands reached up and yanked the end of the tie, his fingers closing over Ianto's until Ianto's head was flush against Jack's neck, angled to bite at the side of his throat. Jack's other hand hooked into the neck of the tie and pulled, so that he could position Ianto's face right where he wanted, which was apparently, right in front of his turned face.

His lips ghosted over Ianto's. "I can do conventional."

Ianto snorted, a small huffing sound. "You say this in a spaceship, whilst I stand here starkers, strangling us both with neckwear."

Jack smiled, his lips pressed to Ianto's so minutely, all he would have to so would be to open his mouth and they could be kissing. "Tomato, tomahto." He stopped and frowned a little—Ianto could feel it more than see it. "I quote too much Gershwin."

Ianto leant in the last three millimeters and pressed his mouth to Jack's, not caring about Gershwin or creativity or spaceships (Though for some reason she was always on the back of his mind, like the smell of lavender in the summer when he opened his windows to the back garden.).

"And here I thought it was Penthouse letters," he whispered when he pulled back, just a little, just enough to speak. Jack's hands twisted the tie and rubbed against his skin, his hips thrusting when Ianto reached down to palm both their cocks. He ran a few fingers in the sparse pubic hair at the base of Jack's cock. "I don't care what you quote as long as—hurk!"

Jack had yanked the tie with his hands, tightening the knot up against Ianto's Adam's apple. His eyes glinted mischievously.

"Is it time for me to be creative? I've already gagged you," he murmured, turning them so that Ianto was shoved against the edge of the counter, all of Jack's weight pressed to him, his clothed knee prying Ianto's legs apart, his thigh brushing up against his balls. "I can't imagine what we might have left." Jack used his tongue as a stylus to draw a smiley face on Ianto's shoulder; he could feel it—the dots of the eyes and they long upcurve swipe of a smile.

"Emoticons, really," Ianto murmured, his hands trying to find their cocks again, but while he had a firm grip on his own, Jack's remained elusive. Or perhaps his fingers were just working poorly.

Jack smiled into his skin. "Yeah well, I'm stalling," he murmured.

Ianto thrust up into his own hand and grunted. His eyes caught the shimmering walls of the TARDIS and he vaguely wondered how even a kitchen could look foreign. It was nothing but a yellow walled kitchen, and yet, it was obviously not a normal kitchen. He couldn't put his finger on what it was, aside from his internal knowledge that he was on a spaceship.

"Are you out of ideas?" Ianto joked, finally locating Jack's cock (it was right where he had left it, fancy that) and stroking with a lazy fist.

Jack's face pulled back and he grinned. "I don't have to think of everything, you know. What do you think I am, a sex encyclopedia?" His smile widened when Ianto simply raised an eyebrow. "Well, yeah, okay." He released the tie and held up both hands. "You think of something."

Ianto glanced about the room. They could probably find all number of kinky things and tools. Spreads and lickable things and objects to shove in places. Ties and drinks and things to titillate.

Instead, he let go of their cocks and used his hands to lift himself up onto the edge of the counter, just in front of the recessed sink. "Okay," he said, wrapping his legs about Jack's waist and leaning forward to capture his mouth again. His teeth clicked against Jack's and there was a moment of awkward head turning and rearranging before they settled into a little bit of a rhythm. It was odd, Ianto mused, being naked and up on the edge of the sink, just like he'd had Jenny Hannigan years ago back when he'd been young and insistent and she'd been willing to do almost anything. Now he was the one without clothes, being slightly manhandled by Jack, whose hands had found his waist, his cock, his chest, pulling and teasing and skimming along his skin.

When Jack broke away, his eyes cast about. "There as to be some here," he murmured, and Ianto rolled his eyes.

"Oh come on."

Jack smirked. "I don't want to be offending your delicate sensi—oh." He stopped when Ianto waved the tail of the tie and dug a finger in the lining, coming up with a small flat packet of lubricant, the kind given out as party favours at a stag night. "You should have been a Boy Scout."

Ianto smiled as Jack ripped at the packet with his teeth. "I forgot it was in there. I put it there ages ago."

Jack sighed and squeezed the lubricant into his fingers, then pressed his forehead to Ianto's as he reached down and tickled Ianto's hole with the tips. "All this time, we could have been getting busy."

Ianto snorted and shoved down a little to help the process. His cock was hard and he could feel his heart beat a little; when he looked at their cocks, his curved along his belly, Jack's peeking up through the V of Ianto's legs about his waist, he realised that they were going to fuck here, face to face, and the concept of seeing Jack, of being just slightly above that face and thrusting, grabbing with his hands and fucking hard and fast was enough to jolt him minutely. He shivered.

"What have we been doing all this—ah, cold fingers!—time, then?"

Jack's fingers completed a cursory circle of Ianto's hole before slipping out so that he could coat his cock with the lube, which was the better deal anyway. Ianto tried to trace Jack's spine with one heel and wondered if women ever felt this moment of awkwardness while they waited to the men in their lives to slip on a condom or something. But it didn't take Jack long, and they dispensed with the seduction, the teasing, the set up. The balls had been racked as it were, and Jack made the break with one quick thrust, his fingers settling around Ianto's waist. Ianto leant into him, one arm braced behind himself for pushing, and the other pulled Jack's face in by the back of his neck so that he could kiss him, every muscle seeming to strain, tighten, this precarious position, wobbling on the counter so Jack could fuck him raw.

Jack's face knitted when Ianto broke the kiss, and his movements changed in rhythm, slower, less frantic. Jack was normally a talker during sex, and the fact that he hadn't said anything in the past minute bothered Ianto.

"What," he panted around a particularly long thrust, "do you say we go outside after this?"

Jack closed his eyes and breathed, then rolled his hips and Ianto forgot what he'd asked. "If you're talking, then something's wrong."

Ianto sucked in his breath when Jack hit a sensitive spot and he clenched a little, breaking his rhythm. Jack froze, bowing his head a little and shaking. Ianto ran his fingers through Jack's hair at the temple, then rolled his own hips. "I do like this afternoon fucking," he said mildly, his own nonchalant way of saying, 'You may continue.'

Jack glanced up at him them, the corner of his mouth turned up in a small smile. "You call this fucking?" He placed both of his hands on Ianto's hips and held him still, his cock halfway in, freezing utterly. It was a special form of torture this way, and it set Ianto's teeth on edge. He couldn't even move his hips to push against Jack's cock.

Ianto snorted and then used his free hand to pinch Jack's nipple before abandoning his brace against the back of the sink and using his other hand to scratch at Jack's chest. His legs tightened and he found that he could push Jack closer from the back, pull him in, as it were.

"Well, it's a far cry from making love," he joked as Jack made his best teasing face. Ianto was hard and frustrated and if Jack didn't resume the fucking in the very, very near future, he was going to wank off in front of him and come all over the both of them.

Jack leant back into Ianto's feet. Curses. "Oh, I didn't realise that you wanted to be _made love_ to, Ianto," he whispered, his eyebrows wiggling, but not matching something in his eyes themselves. "I didn't think that would interest you."

Of course not, Ianto thought. They didn't do that. Making love was for women and romantic lovers and people you cared deeply for in a—

Oh. Well then.

He could feel the heat rushing to his face, more than it already was, and he looked away then, hands stilling and settling on Jack's shoulders. "It might," he admitted, suddenly very interested in the floor tiles. They were brown.

Jack pushed into Ianto then, all the way, once, to the hilt, the very end of him, and leant in, grabbing Ianto's jaw with one hand. "We can do that, you know." He kissed Ianto so lightly on the lips that it barely registered. "Some day, you just say the word." He pulled out slowly and then, still holding Ianto's face, pushed back in, and then out. Normal service had resumed.

Ianto felt his cock against his belly, impossibly hard, he knew that he was going to come. Jack's movements were methodical, his grip on Ianto's face firm, and his eyes riveted to Ianto's as they rocked a little.

"Say the word, and it's tablecloths and drippy candles and flowers—"

"I hate flowers."

"Chocolates then, and violins, and then I'll take you home and unwrap you, and we'll make love wherever you want," Jack breathed. "And the whole time, we'll look at each other, just—" Push in. "Like." Pull out. "This." Push in.

Ianto came all over his chest and Jack leant in to lick some of it away, what he could reach, tongue working on Ianto's skin even a the last of Ianto's orgasm pumped out of his cock. Ianto used both hands to lean against the back of the sink basin, and Jack brought himself in short order, as if he had been waiting for Ianto and he himself was an afterthought.

Ianto hadn't even realised that he was out of breath, that he had broken out in a sweat, that he had been panting like some corseted romance novel heroine until he felt his chest heaving and the chill of the air ghosting across his skin. Jack pulled out and lay against him, his smile crooked like a lopsided painting on an uneven wall.

"Missionary," Jack said, cocking his head. "I think it's been...how long has it been?"

Ianto shrugged. "I think this might be the kinkiest thing we've ever done," he replied, reclining so that his arms braced him and his arse wouldn't fall into the sink. "That should say something about us," he decided at the ceiling.

Jack leant forward and licked a line up the sweat on Ianto's sternum. "It says we're doing something right."

The hallways were dark, probably simulating nighttime in a place where there was no night. Ianto wondered if the TARDIS slept. She was so alive in other ways that the thought that she couldn't sleep bothered him. He let Jack lead him by the hand as they roamed the hallways, still unclothed, running their free hands along her smooth surfaces, whispering to each other and to her like children out of bed. Ianto wondered vaguely what it would be like to leave this place, because it had to happen sometime. She might want them for a few days, a week, but she had a Time Lord to whom she belonged, and two humans, no matter how unique or special one of them was, could never compete with the last Gallifreyan in existence.

Jack had told him that she was just theirs for _"nows"_ not for _"evers"_ , and said it reverently as if it had meaning and wasn't just poor grammar.

The past three days had passed in a blur of sex and eating and swimming and in general just pretending that this was what they were going to do with their lives. Ianto hadn't thought about Gwen or Rhys or Torchwood much at all. Okay, he thought about Gwen, he admitted guiltily to himself, but never in a wholesome "I hope she's coping" way and more in a, 'Jesus fuck I'd like to shag her in the hothouse, sticky hair and breasts and softness around the cock' way. Oops.

Jack had always been open, really, a little too open sometimes, about alien worlds and the creatures that lived in them, and Ianto had always listened with the half-cocked ear of the disbeliever. Oh, that wasn't to say that he thought Jack was lying, _per se_ , but rather he preferred to think that Jack was embellishing. And maybe he was. Even after three days on what was obviously another planet, Ianto had yet to see another alien. He'd seen loads of them on Earth, but never one in what he would call its natural habitat. Then again, on this planet, _he_ was the alien, wasn't he?

The TARDIS was alive and responsive and catered to their needs, and whatever she got from it, Ianto couldn't begin to guess, unless she was indeed one of the perviest ships that ever perved the universe. He was pretty sure that if he were to suggest this to Jack, the man would just smile and talk about how virtuous she was before she met him.

Then he would proceed to show Ianto how much he could corrupt things. Of this, Ianto needed no further proof.

So here they were, roaming the TARDIS in the evening/nighttime dimness, running lights on the floor to guide their way. "I'm not sure there's a time and a place to say this," Ianto ventured, for the third time in the past two hours, "But you do know that eventually this has to end."

Jack pretended not to hear him, or rather, his body did. He used his fingertips to trace up and down sine wave patterns as he walked, all but humming to himself in satisfaction. To Ianto he said, "I know, just not right now. Not today."

Ianto wanted to ask, 'then when?' but instead he thought back to a lunch on the sand, a tussle in the water, a particularly excellent blow job in the cresting waves, and then an early evening rambling walk that had taken them up to the cliffs at the far end of the beach where they had discovered nests of bird-like creatures the size of puffins that warbled in atonal harmonics. Jack explained the rhythm and scale to Ianto, covering his ears the whole time. Then they had fled, as the creatures became agitated and they'd tripped down the cliffside, laughing and racing, and in general being stupid (Ianto shouldn't have been running downhill; Jack could afford to break his neck, but he couldn't) until they had stumbled into the TARDIS tired and damp and out of breath.

It had been silly and invigorating and they had eaten supper on the floor in the console room, talking to each other and the ship, including it in the conversation. That had been the first clue that it was time to go, really, in Ianto's mind. His head flitted through what he knew of poignant children's books about magical wardrobes or coming-of-age novels when one had to throw off the trappings of childhood and take on the mantle of responsibility. Then he thought about the DSMV-IV, and wondered what it might have said about talking to sentient spaceships. Probably nothing. Yet.

Jack stopped then, as he found a door he seemed to fancy. It wasn't like the normal doors in the TARDIS. The doors he'd found, when there had been any (bedrooms and loos had doors, but everything else was open access) were rather standard issue Earth doors: Brown wood, nondescript. This was something different, curved and shiny, almost mother of pearl or rose, gleaming, though it could just have been bioluminescent.

"Ohh," Jack breathed, his hand running along the edges of it fondly. He pressed his cheek to the polished pink surface. "Oh darling, yeah."

Ianto dropped Jack's hands and stepped back. Sometimes he thought Jack and the TARDIS needed actual private time, and if this was one of those times, he'd get over it. But Jack looked back at him, his face amused and dreamlike, lost in preoccupation. "The secret room," he whispered, even though they were alone. A lock of hair fell over his forehead and one cluster curled up at the temple like a horn. "I call it the need room."

"The need room."

Jack smiled and found the door handle, which looked rather like--Ianto raised his brows at it, but followed Jack when the door swung open noiselessly and the darkness inside began to recede as the internal lights went on. They weren't very bright. There was a strange smell that wafted out to greet him, earthy, like loam, but moist, not unlike walking through a hothouse or conservatory. Organic.

"Yeah," Jack breathed. "It just appears when you need it."

Ianto did a turn about the room. It was small, really, the size of Jack's office at the Hub, and it had no actual furniture that he could see, but rather walls in a variety of red to pink shades, patterned with swirls and marbling and occasional ribbons of gilt. All of the walls were punctuated with holes of varying sizes. Some of them were enough to fit a hand in, others only large enough to accommodate a finger, and even others that seemed the appropriate size to fit, well, hrm.

What was uncanny about the walls was that they seemed to be moving, just slightly. And in places they looked a little see through, as if he could see into the room next door, though right now he could see nothing of the sort.

"So, it's like a Room of Requirement?" Ianto asked, eyeing the walls with doubt. They looked squishy, but not altogether unpleasant. Inviting, even.

Jack snickered. "If you like, Headmaster. I never made it appear though. I think it only appears when she's randy." He waggled his eyebrows and dipped one of his hands into a smooth hole in the wall, and it closed on his wrist while he worked it.

Ianto watched, fascinated as Jack shuddered and shamelessly rolled his wrist inside the wall, which was translucent enough to see the opaque shape of his flesh. "Leave it to you to have found the..." he cast about for a term. "T-spot."

Jack laughed and yanked Ianto's arm towards him. "Oh, you ain't seen nothing yet."

Ianto moved towards the wall with a little bit of trepidation. All previous thoughts of the TARDIS eating Jack came back in a rush, and he thought about the creature in Skypoint that had eaten those people, walking through the walls, and left undigested bits in an air duct. He thought about the V7jks, and the way last year, they had had to dig people out of the great beast's mouth.

He thought about the Perfection's flesh wall. Oh dear, no.

Jack must have seen it all flash across his face, because he laughed then, pulling Ianto's arm a bit more towards him and pressing a kiss to his mouth. Jack's eyes were glossy with anticipation, not unlike children waiting to go outside and play at recess. "No. Hey...it's her," he said softly. "You know her. You were just talking to her earlier."

Ianto let Jack guide one of his hands to another opening, and he ran a fingertip across the lip of it. It was soft, malleable, like made of a gelpack or agar, but not damp. Well, a little damp. Ianto drew his hand away. Jack pushed his arm further into the hole he was working, his eyes fluttering. Ianto wondered if he was actually experiencing something, some sensation, or if Jack, like Ianto often noticed, was deriving pleasure simply from the knowledge that he was giving it.

And there was no doubt that whatever he was doing was _working_ for the ship. If this was indeed some secret core of her, which Ianto was fairly convinced that it was, then she had welcomed them in, and now her reds and pinks rotated and faded in and out, the gold ribbon actually moving until Ianto could make out that it wasn't really completely attached, but was undulating, moving, pulling away from the walls.

Ianto jerked his hand for a second when the slim, waving, what was that? A tentacle? It was too uniform to be a tentacle, right? It wrapped around his wrist a few times and pulled. He dared a glance at Jack, who had been more welcoming than Ianto: Three of them were curled about him, on his wrist, on his thigh, on his--

Whoa.

Jack glanced down at the tendril wrapped about his cock and groaned. "That is what I'm talking about." He drew his gaze up to Ianto. "Do you know how long it's been since..." he drifted off when the strand tightened, and he leant against the wall, his arm buried in the TARDIS wall up to his shoulder. "How long it's been since I've had anything so...foreign?"

Ianto let the tendril lead him to the wall near Jack, and Ianto tested another aperture with his fingers, running them along the soft edges. They were faintly ridged, bumpy but not rough, slightly damp, and he thought a few filthy things for a second before he noticed that another slim thread of gold had wrapped itself about his waist, and another was sliding up his chest, the smoothness of it tickling his nipples, brushing the hair there. He was pulled forward again until he was inches from the wall, almost face to face with it.

And he was starting to feel something, something that felt like those first moments that Jack had spread him in the console room and slid the tube into him, but deeper, something that came from the coils looping about him, the scent wafting from the wall in front of him.

Jack's free hand snaked to Ianto and pressed the small of his back, so that he fell the last few inches towards the surface, almost mashing his face into it. Ianto turned to look at Jack, to argue with him, to say something about foreplay, a joke, but one of the tendrils had wended its way into Jack's mouth, filling it and sliding in and out minutely. Jack's eyes were closed and he didn't appear to be gagging. Other longer arms worked around his back in an embrace, pulling him closer, almost into the wall a bit, and one of them seemed to be, no, absolutely was, working itself into Jack's hole.

When Jack opened his eyes, they were bright yellow flashes of light, as if he was possessed, lit from within. Ianto almost jerked from the wall, but something yanked at his waist and something else guided his cock neatly into the wall, to a hole he would have sworn hadn't been there before, and as it sealed around him, he pressed his forehead into the surface in front of him even as his mouth opened to gasp. The wall pulsed around his cock in a rhythm he couldn't begin to interpret or count out.

Ianto's fingers scrabbled for purchase, something to hold on to, and in his grasping, he turned his head away from Jack, staring at his right hand as it found another hole at chest height and slipped its fingers inside, wiggling them when they came in contact with a warm slippery grooved surface that moved in a wave around his hand. Around him, the TARDIS vibrated around his cock, against his chest and legs, flush with the wall, and behind him, Jack hummed a little, he could hear it even from their short distance. His left hand, even though he couldn't see it, found Jack's right and grasped at the palm gently. Jack's fingers twined with his before turning their palms so that they were overlapping but flat on the surface of the wall. Ianto looked back to him, his right hand still exploring the inside of the TARDIS and his cock rigid and immobile but being worked thoroughly by what felt like tiny tongues, or a vacuum attachment, or the most masterful hand in the universe. Which of course, she could be.

Jack's eyes were still filled with light, but he seemed to see Ianto, because he smiled and, as the tentacle left his mouth and snaked along the wall, a ribbon of living gold and silver curling about Ianto's neck and up his cheek. The pulsing around Ianto's cock lightened, and Jack breathed a long sigh, his hips thrusting into the wall as the tendrils in his arse and about his thighs tightened and writhed.

"She fucks like time," Jack whispered, and Ianto opened his mouth to draw in a ragged breath, but the slow moving finger of TARDIS that had left Jack and made its way to him and slid into his mouth; he couldn't even flail when it made its way across his tongue, worming past his palate and down his throat. His mouth felt like it was on fire, and his head tingled, from the base of his skull and working its way upwards until his eyes watered and he knew, blinking and smiling around the tasteless flesh in his mouth, feeling the spit in the corners of his mouth and the smooth skin of the TARDIS on his tongue, he knew that his eyes matched Jack's, gold and filled with her, filled with her heart.

The hole tightened on Ianto's cock, and his head rang with what felt like slippery bells. His chest pressed into the wall, and the tendrils tightened around his waist, his thighs. His fingers danced along the textures of the hole that grasped it up to the elbow and something was moving in his hair. Next to him, Jack laughed and rubbed his face against the wall, hips grinding as he seemed to sink into it. His fingers pressed into Ianto's, digging them into the surface that yielded under the pressure.

Ianto had to close his eyes, but as the lids slid shut he could still see everything, still see the wall throbbing against his cheek, Jack grinning and laughing in front of him, figures and shadows moving through the air that he hadn't been able to see with his eyes open. His legs had rather ceased to exist, and even if he wanted to will them to move, he was sure that he couldn't.

Jack snorted and gasped and barked a laugh. "Oh no, baby, be gentle with him, no, oh—" and Ianto heard the unmistakable sound of the thunderous Harkness orgasm, Jack's fingers pulling away so that he could ram the knuckles of his fist into the wall, could pull his face from the wall.

The tendril in Ianto's mouth withdrew and he was about to crack his jaw for a moment when the wall, the TARDIS, squeezed his cock and pulled, and he went with her, almost into the wall, almost through it, as if she was fucking his molecules unstable. Her low humming danced through his chest, up his neck to his skull, and when he opened his eyes, the plainness of the things he saw almost made him close them again. But Jack was there, panting against the wall, covered in tendrils that wove themselves about him in a kind of living golden cloth. Jack smiled once, rubbed his temple against the wall and raised his hand again. "Go ahead. All systems go."

Ianto felt his heart speed up. His hips jerked as he tried to help the TARDIS, tried, he though, against all possibility; she didn't need help, and he wasn't remotely in control of—

Ianto felt the wall give a little and he sank into it a few inches, holding his face away. One of Jack's hands came up and stroked across his cheek. "Have fun," Jack said, and Ianto sank into the wall further, wondering if he was going to be eaten, and then realising that he didn't care. He simply turned his face to the wall and breathed deep.

She tasted and smelled like sunshine and oil and curry and Spain and thunder and Jack and Lisa and all things that he had ever wanted to see or hear or touch in joy or wonder. She bent herself about him, curving arcs and golden ribbons and promise and pressure. Ianto's hands felt free, his body wasn't pressed to the wall anymore, but was in it, and he bent back, arching the bones and bending his knees. The tendrils about his back threaded through his hair, into his arse, around his cock, in between his toes. When he opened his mouth to laugh, she filled him, time and loneliness and some spark of creation.

Somewhere behind him, he heard Jack laugh, and he understood then, that everything he was, everything that made him eternal, was tied up in this morass here, this living breathing thing that suffused him and permeated him, and when he came, he could feel Jack's hand coming through the TARDIS for him, gently pulling, fingers a hot brand on his shoulder, his chest hot when he molded himself to Ianto's back and embraced him, gravity meaning nothing, really, when Ianto fell into him and they didn't fall, instead suspended like children in amnion.

Jack's teeth grazed his shoulder, his nose brushed behind Ianto's ear, his fingers played with the tendrils and strands like errant wisps of hair. Ianto let her work in him, around him, and when he came, he could feel her swallowing him down, feel her thrumming to him like a happy lover. Jack's fingers wove through the tendrils and found Ianto's thigh, and his skin on the fine hairs there was almost too much, too rough. Ianto sighed, arched his feet and fell, knowing even as the orgasm that seemed to go on forever was drawing to an end, even then, he'd never ever hit the ground.

It was about thirty minutes later, maybe. Well, Ianto had decided to call it thirty minutes, since he had no way of telling time, not when he was naked and still somewhat trembling in the TARDIS's core room. The ground around him was soft and dry, conforming to his body shape. Every ten seconds or so one of his limbs twitched.

Jack sprawled on the floor within arm's reach, pretty much in the same condition. Or rather, what Ianto assumed was the same condition. Much like the time issue, Ianto hadn't access to a mirror either, so he could only guess at what he looked like. He assumed that 'mind-blowingly well-shagged' was an apt description. Jack raised one hand to look at his fingertips and then laughed to himself, a lazy, almost hysterical chuckle, as if he was high. Ianto couldn't blame him, he decided when he felt his left foot twitch, the way they did when he was on the verge of falling asleep.

His mind wasn't really tired, but his body wanted to rest, so he drifted in and out. Jack rolled on his stomach and pressed his cheek into the cushioning floor under him. Ianto drifted in and out of consciousness, waking every once in a while to hear Jack's whispers and murmurs, something in English, sometimes in languages that he didn't recognise.

Finally, Jack sat up, looked at Ianto, and ran a hand down the wall nearest him. "Baby, we have to go home now," he said dolefully to the walls.

Ianto blinked.

"All right," he said softly, his fingers dancing on the floor beneath him. "But let me get dressed first."

***

Ianto ran a hand down her frame, trying to imagine her warming under his touch, but that was ludicrous. The outside wasn't like that. He drummed his fingertips across the POLICE BOX notice and smiled. She was easy on the hands, if not on the eyes, and he'd never be able to think of her any other way. Jack leant against the closed door and watched him.

"This is the part where you say, 'I told you so'," Ianto chirped, trying to sound dry and not a little let down. They would go back to the Hub and pretend this never happened, really. They'd know, and they might talk about it, but they'd never tell another soul. He ran his fingertip around one of her windows in a rectangle, over and over again as Jack sighed.

"I would _never_ \--"

"Oi! Where have you been with my ship!"

Ianto froze, feeling distinctly like a teenager caught with his hands in his girlfriend's bra. Jack made an innocent face and pulled his hands from his pockets, pushing off from the ship with one foot.

He would not look. He would not turn around. If he turned around, the Doctor would _know_. Oh hell, Jack was about to _tell_ him, and Ianto would be trapped here on the Plass, with them all. Maybe if he went in really fast, she'd lock the two of them out and take off.

Under his hand, the door rattled a bit and he drew in a deep breath, turning and schooling his face in a mask of complete innocence. No, nonchalance. Yeah, nonchalance was the way to go.

The Doctor was walking rapidly across the Plass straight towards the paving stone, his long brown coat flapping in the wind. One hand was shoved in a trouser pocket and the other clutched what looked to be a Starbucks cup. Figured. Ianto restrained a long-suffering sigh.

Jack clapped his hands once and opened his arms. "Where have _you_ been?" he asked the same time the Doctor pulled his hand from his pocket and waved it about, asking "Where have you _been_?"

Jack waved his hands dismissively. "Looking for you! We poked our heads in and you were nowhere in sight"

The Doctor held up the hand with the Starbucks and replied distractedly, his eyes running over the TARDIS as if taking inventory. Maybe he was. Ianto wondered how long before he intuited that something had gone horribly awry whilst he'd been gone. "They make this banana thing with chai that I thought couldn't taste like banana, but..." The Doctor peered at the wood over Ianto's shoulder and then looked at Ianto, right in the face. It was disquieting. "What did you two do to my ship?" he asked suspiciously.

Ianto coughed.

"You _didn't_ ," the Doctor said, raising his brows at Ianto. Ianto tried to make a bland face, but something must have showed, to the Doctor's alien senses or mind reading (oh dear god please not mind reading) told him something, because he took a step backwards. "Oh no. No, really!" He turned to Jack accusingly. "What did you do?"

Jack flipped his hands up in a surrender gesture. "She started it! We just went in to look for you and she..." He waved his hands like bird wings. "Took off! And you know I can't fly her! And by the way, what the hell did you do with that power coupling in grouping five? It's all stripped!"

The Doctor stepped in front of the door, wagging a finger at Jack, before extending his admonishment to Ianto as well. "Oh, don't you distract me. You expect me to believe that she would just-- nah, well, maybe." He cocked his head, thinking, and the finger wavered. "She might have--no!" The hand snapped back up and stabbed Jack in the chest. "I remember you with that Chula ship. They're always nice girls until they meet you!"

Jack glanced at Ianto for help, but he didn't seem to be particularly upset at the accusation.

Ianto cleared his throat. "She did take off with us, and we were rather, uhm, trapped, inside." The Doctor looked at him, waiting. Ianto scrambled for the words. "It was completely consensual, sir," he deadpanned. Jack bit both of his lips and widened his eyes, probably trying not to laugh.

If ire could be written across a man's face, the Doctor's expression was a novel for about three seconds. His jaw ground and he glanced from Ianto to the TARDIS, his brain obviously whirring at alien and unnatural (for humans) speed. Then it softened. Ianto spent a split second wondering if the Doctor and his ship had ever been as...intimate. Looking at the man now, Ianto realised that he didn't _want_ to know. "Oh," the Doctor mumbled, and it was hard to tell who he was talking to or even looking at, "you made your point."

Jack looked past the Doctor at Ianto and shrugged his shoulders. "Sir?" he queried.

The Doctor waved with his coffee hand and it frothed through the sip hole in the lid. "She gets like this about...every fifty years or so. I thought we'd be able to skip it this time, since she's still recovering from the paradox..." The Doctor glanced at Ianto. "You know. But no, it seems that she was looking for a good time."

"She could have dialed an escort service," Ianto muttered, and regretted it immediately as the Doctor glared at him.

"But, ah!" He shrugged and there was more foam spillage. He rolled his shoulders and brushed his free hand on his coat, as if dusting off invisible dirt. "I'll be off." He reached out for the door handle, only to get it open an inch or so before his way was blocked.

Jack leant against the cracked door, his grin impossibly wide. Innocent, therefore completely lascivious. "Look, can we have just a few minutes? To say goodbye?"

Ianto smiled, and it felt foreign on his face. "Properly. We'll be very firm that she's not to go anywhere."

The Doctor sighed. "Telling my ship what to do, you lot are daft," he mumbled. "All right, but just five minutes."

"Twenty," Ianto countered, and Jack made the 'don't waken the dragon' face at him over the Doctor's shoulder. Ianto ignored it and reached out to touch the handle, his hand effectively cutting in front of the Doctor. He was fairly sure that spaceship sex for three days straight had made him insensible; he could see his mistakes in the back of his head, but couldn't stop himself from making them.

"Ten."

"Seventeen."

"Fifteen," the Doctor said with finality, his eyes wide in consternation and his lips set.

Ianto let go of the door handle. "Deal."

The handle seemed to vibrate under his fingers, and he glanced at it, rubbing his thumb on the bend at the top. The Doctor gave a long-suffering sigh and reached out with one finger to streak it down the blue wooden surface. There was no sound in it-- just the sentiment of regret or understanding or resignation exchanged between two beings. Ianto wondered if there had been a falling out of sorts, or if the TARDIS simply wasn't available for the Doctor the way she had been for them. Or perhaps it was the opposite.

Regardless, as the Doctor tapped three times on the wood with his finger and then walked away, tapping on his coffee-holding hand's wrist with an index finger, raising his eyebrows in Jack's direction, Ianto realised that that was none of his business.

Jack stepped in and turned back to Ianto, holding out one hand. "You coming?"

Ianto smiled. "Yeah, go ahead. I'll be right there."

Jack shrugged and disappeared into the ship. Ianto watched the Doctor disappear down the Plass, coat flapping merrily in the wind. A few gulls off the bay circled him, and he waved his hands.

Ianto regarded the door for a few seconds, and thought about what Jack was already doing in their precious fifteen minutes. The Doctor was probably timing it, down to the millisecond, in every time measurement ever created. Ianto reached out one hand to run over the door, and then tugged his tie loose, pulling the circle of it over his head. He threaded it through the metal, then the end though the noose, and yanked it taut until it hung off the handle.

There. Sorted.

The door opened, and he rapped his knuckles on the frame, stepped inside and called out Jack's name.

The door shut behind him with a satisfied click.

END


End file.
